An influential House Republican on Monday panned the bipartisan immigration deal emerging from the Senate as providing “amnesty” to illegal immigrants.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the immigration-reform principles floated by a bipartisan group of senators would reward lawbreakers, increase unemployment and push enormous new costs onto U.S. taxpayers.
“When you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration,” Smith said in a brief statement. “By granting amnesty, the Senate proposal actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration.”