On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) stated that he and “probably a majority of the Hispanic Caucus” in the House would have opposed the Senate border bill because the bill didn’t have provisions for people already in the country illegally.
Garcia said, “I think, unfortunately, many of us in the Hispanic Caucus on the House side are concerned that the bill also does not include real immigration reform. And I think you have to have both. I think a lot of what’s in there as it relates to border security, supporting Border Patrol agents, technology, those are the right things. The president supports those. But it’s also true that we have 11 million people in this country with no pathway to citizenship. It’s also true that we need to strengthen our asylum laws. It’s also true that we have DREAMers who really are looking at their futures not knowing what could be next for them. And so, we believe that that package could have been a lot stronger, it could have been broader, and certainly something that a lot of us are working on, is real comprehensive immigration reform, which we also know that President Biden supports. In fact, on his first day in office, President Biden actually introduced a comprehensive immigration reform package, and that’s what we’d like to see in front of the Congress.”
He added, “I would have voted no. And I think you’d have a large chunk of the — and probably a majority of the Hispanic Caucus voting no as well. I think what we want to see is a comprehensive bill that actually includes also immigration provisions like supporting DREAMers, like supporting our DACA recipients, and that’s something that the bill did not include. And I applaud folks like Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) on the Senate side, who I think speaks to a lot of our concerns as well.”
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