GOP rep: 'Doing nothing' on immigration is the real 'amnesty'
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Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart appealed to his colleagues to press forward on an immigration overhaul, saying Monday that "doing nothing is not an alternative" -- and tantamount to "amnesty."
Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida, has been an advocate for immigration reform and is hopeful a deal can be reached this year. If Congress does not act, the GOP takes the risk of being blamed for not trying to fix immigration, he said.
Diaz-Balart said the Hispanic community can relate to GOP’s ideals in several ways but said their lack of support to date for immigration legislation has kept potential supporters away.
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“On certain issues we [Republicans] can [do] very well whether its individual responsibility, freedom, whether its opportunity, job creation, social mobility … There is, however an 800-pound gorilla in the room and that is immigration reform,” Diaz-Balart told Fox News contributor Mallory Factor on FoxNews.com.
He sees both parties failing to fully understand and fix the U.S. immigration system.
“There is a consensus in the country that we have an immigration system that doesn’t work, we don’t have a legal system that works. … Then you have 11, 12 who knows millions of people who are here undocumented, unlawful … and doing nothing about that is frankly amnesty,” said Diaz-Balart.
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Diaz-Balart, who is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, said “we have to make choices here.”
He added “that we either try to secure the border, have a legal system that works and deal with the folks that are here in a responsible fashion while adhering to the rule of law … or we do nothing and doing nothing is not an alternative.”
Diaz-Balart hinted “there are a group of us [in Congress] that want to solve it,” but when asked who is in the group, he said: "There I cannot go.”