Grassley: Constituents Want Border Security First, Legalization After

The “Gang of Eight” immigration bill pushing through the Senate right now legalizes America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants first, then promises to improve border security later, but the constituents of Iowa–according to the state’s GOP senator–think that border security should come before legalization.

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said during a Monday Senate floor speech opening up the debate on immigration that his constituents are not pleased with the Gang of Eight proposal.

“If you want to know how important securing the border is, just come to my town hall meetings,” Grassley said. “So far I’ve been in 73 of the 99 counties. My constituents say to me that we don’t need more laws, we need to enforce the laws on the books.”

Marco Rubio, one of the members of the Gang of Eight, is thought to be considering a run for the White House in 2016. The road to the Republican nomination, and to the White House for any candidate, leads straight through Iowa.

As Grassley notes, however, the Gang of Eight plan, “repeats our past mistakes and does very little to deliver more than the same empty promises we made in 1986.”