Raul Labrador: Immigration Reform With Pathway To Citizenship Won't Get House GOP Support

Source: Huffington Post

Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) warned on Thursday that he won't vote for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and neither will his fellow House Republicans, a bad sign from someone who is considered one of the more pro-reform Republicans in the chamber.

"The people that came here illegally knowingly --- I don't think they should have a path to citizenship," he said on NPR, according to Talking Points Memo. "If you knowingly violated our law, you violated our sovereignty, I think we should normalize your status but we should not give you a pathway to citizenship."

Whether the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States should be given a pathway to become citizens is shaping up to be the most contentious issue in the immigration reform debate. Democrats and some Republicans insist such a provision must be a part of any reform bill, and a bipartisan Senate group dubbed the "gang of eight" released a framework that includes one.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday found that 56 percent of voters think undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States and eventually apply for citizenship, while only 10 percent say they should be able to stay but not become citizens. Thirty percent say undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave the country.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/raul-labrador-immigration-reform_n_2638484.html