Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), formerly of the House Group of 8 on immigration, got into a widely-covered spat with conservative columnist David Brooks this weekend, when Brooks called the Congressman out for opposing the Senate immigration bill.
Labrador, who this weekend also spent time warning Republicans about the perils of passing a bad immigration bill, said that he disagreed with the legislation the Senate passed two weeks ago because it gave the Obama administration too much say over when the border could be considered secure.
Brooks snapped back in a powerful defense of the Senate immigration bill, pointing out the ways that the bill helps the economy and resolves current issues with undocumented immigration:
I’ve seen a lot of intellectually weak cases in this town. I’ve rarely seen as intellectually a weak case as the case against the Senate immigration bill. The Republicans say they want to reduce illegal immigration; the Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill will reduce it by a third to half. They say they want economic growth; all the top conservative economists say it’ll produce economic growth. They say they want to reduce the debt; the CBO says it will reduce the debt. All the big major objectives the Republicans stand for, the Senate immigration bill will do. The other things they’re talking about are secondary and tertiary issues. Whether we get 86% border protection or 90%—compared to the big things this bill does, they’re miniscule. I’m mystified.
Here’s the rest of their exchange, via Mediate:
“I’m sorry, what I just heard was totally ridiculous,” Labrador said. “If you listen to what the CBO said, they said that it’s going to be between one-third and fifty percent reduction in illegal immigration. That means that every five years we’re going to have to do another amnesty…For somebody to sit here on national TV and say that it is actually a weak argument for us to argue that we want 90% security is beyond the pale.”
Brooks couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The CBO said it would reduce it by a third to fifty percent, and what I heard the congressman saying is he won’t support it because we’d have to go back and do a Reagan.”
“That’s not what I said!” Labrador yelled. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“The current law produces ‘X’ much illegal immigration,” Brooks said. “This law cuts it significantly. It’s better than the current law. Generally when something is better than what we got, generally you want to support that thing.”
Watch the segment here:
