So-called Gang of Eight: Sen. Jeff Flake, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Charles Schumer, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Robert Menendez and Sen. Richard Durbin. (AP)
Two senators who helped write the comprehensive bipartisan immigration legislation say the Boston Marathon bombings should expedite an overhaul of the current system.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday that the bombings that left three dead "should urge us to act quicker, not slower when it comes to getting the 11 million identified," referring to the estimated number of immigrants living in the country illegally. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York added "keeping the status quo is not a very good argument, given what happened" in Boston.
Schumer says critics are using the bombings to oppose a proposal they disliked from the start. He says that if they have suggestions to make the proposal better, they should speak up.
On Friday, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict immigration enforcement, told Fox News Latino the immigration status of the two suspects in the bombings may not have “direct” impact on the effort to overhaul the system, but it will likely have some effect.
“If they were resettled as refugees, we don’t know if that was done in the legal sense, we don’t know if they were in fear in Chechnya and fled.”
But their immigration history should raise some points, Krikorian said.
“What it shows is that immigration security is not divisible, that is, you can’t pick and choose what countries or group you’re going to pay lots of attention to. You can’t say, ‘We going to worry about people from Saudi Arabia, but not Russia.’”
Based on reporting by The Associated Press.
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