By Greg Johnson
Posted August 20, 2013 at 6:29 p.m.
knoxnews.com

There were flare-ups, if not quite fireworks, when U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Johnson City, held a wide-ranging town hall at Northview Academy in Sevier County on Monday night.

Tea party-types occupied the front row, there to encourage Roe to defund “Obamacare” — Roe said it can’t be done — and a white-clad pro-immigrant crowd sat to the physical right of the tea party.

Immigration turned out the big topic.

Roe said “amnesty” didn’t work in 1986 and detailed how the House Judiciary Committee has voted to increase STEM visas, allow state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws, establish an agricultural guest worker program and expand the use of E-Verify. The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill with a path to citizenship.

Question time brought sparks.

Roe heard heartfelt stories about immigrant families, immigrant veterans and immigrants who work hard and pay taxes. Immigrants expressed love for America and asked Roe to support comprehensive reform.

All that was too much for one attendee. His voice rising and face flushing, a middle-aged man said he had lost his job because of illegal immigration.

“Can you feel the anger?” he asked.

Roe responded quickly. “When you come here illegally, you’ve broken the law,” Roe said, softening that hard statement by identifying legal immigrants as friends.

That wasn’t enough for Alysa Medina with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee-Rights Coalition.

“We want a clear path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants, with strong worker protection,” Medina told me after the meeting. “We want to keep families united.”

Some, though, see a path to citizenship as selective law enforcement.

“If I rob a bank, I’ll be prosecuted,” said Rob Bremer, a member of the Sevier County Tea Party. “If 50 of my friends rob banks, they’ll be prosecuted. How many need to do something wrong before they get amnesty?”

I asked Medina about the rule of law.

"When laws are so broken, then Congress needs to take a look at those laws and fix them,” she said.

Medina said the Senate bill addresses all her concerns and expressed skepticism the “piecemeal” approach in the House would work.

Roe was still listening to the immigration advocates long after the meeting ended, finally telling them, “I will vote the way the majority in my district wants.”

Which means the earnest effort by Medina and friends likely didn’t move Roe’s mind at all.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/au...s-roes-sevier/