Thread: TX: Gohmert: No amnesty for immigrants

Gohmert: No amnesty for immigrants

By MATTHEW STOFF
The Daily Sentinel

Monday, December 10, 2007

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert vowed during an interview Monday to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship while they remained in the country, but said he supported increased numbers of visas that would allow legal immigrants to work in America.

"I don't think we need any new paths to citizenship," he said, adding "I do think, though, that we need more workers than we have here. There really aren't enough workers."

The congressman answered questions about immigration and government spending while he was in Nacogdoches for a GOP Christmas party at The Fredonia Monday evening, where he spoke about the winter holiday and gave a brief update on legislative activity in Washington.

Among Gohmert's strongest convictions on the topic of immigration was his enthusiasm for the rigorous enforcement of laws against entering the country without permission and against hiring illegal aliens.

Asked about area businesses that would lose a substantial percentage of their workforce without the labor of possibly illegal workers, Gohmert said he was "sympathetic to employers who are trying to make sure that their employees are legally here."

"I'm very supportive of a tamper-proof card we give to people who are not citizens," he said, describing one potential method of verifying workers' legal status.

That plan, along with more work visas, Gohmert believes, will alleviate the burden on businesses struggling with finding employees while the countywide unemployment rate is under 4 percent.

Gohmert said the White House-backed comprehensive immigration bill that stalled in the U.S. Senate earlier this year was "a poison pill," and that he "absolutely would not have" voted for it if it ever reached the House.

"It was going to allow people who are here illegally to claim a legal status," he said.

The lawmaker did agree with one of the proposed elements of the failed legislation. Gohmert said definitively that English should be the official language of the United States, warning that a country with "pockets that cannot communicate" is destined for "the trash heap of history as a nation."

The representative was also careful to credit Hispanic culture with numerous virtues, including "their hard work ethic, their strong devotion to family and, generally speaking, their faith in God," he said.

On the issue of government debt, Gohmert said he supports a balanced budget and noted that he was opposed to the heavy spending of the previous Republican congress. He appeared equally unhappy with the spending of the present Democratically-controlled congress.

"As bad as things were the last two years, it's just been terribly exacerbated this year," he said.

Citing "air drop earmarks," an apparently common practice of adding of pork-barrel projects to bills while in conference committee, Gohmert said he supported eliminating all earmarks in federal laws.

"That's where billions of dollars have been added," he said of the joint Senate and House conferences, where final versions of bills are agreed upon. "They didn't go through committee in either house, they didn't have hearings on them. All of a sudden they just appear and they don't have anybody's name on them ... I've been supportive of just completely eliminating earmarks all together, because it is so hard to prevent the abuses that have occurred."

Despite the foibles of the law-making process, Gohmert was pleased that some progress had been made. Congress recently approved the first step toward the construction of a federal monument in honor of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Though such a project may still be years away, Gohmert seemed determined.

"We want to have a monument," he said.

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The representative was also careful to credit Hispanic culture with numerous virtues, including "their hard work ethic, their strong devotion to family and, generally speaking, their faith in God," he said.



This kind of pandering always gives me a queasy feeling.

We are talking about illegals who have ignored our laws, and show their disrespect for it and its citizens and he wants to talk virtue.

Not sure, but I believe one of the big employers in his district would be Pilgrim's Corporation - poultry industry.

We do have to feel a little sorry for him - he is walking a tightrope here.