House Judiciary Committee Chairman says 'path to citizenship' unlikely to pass in the House
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday and said that he doesn't think a bill that provides a special path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal aliens is likely to pass in the House. Rep. Goodlatte did indicate that he thinks a bill that offers legalization to some illegal aliens could pass, however.
"The Senate bill gives legal status to 11 million people before it solves all the problems with securing the border, with E-Verify, with an entry-exit visa system, and it says we'll take care of those later, but that's 1986. And in 1986, we gave an easy pathway to citizenship," Rep. Goodlatte said.
Rep. Goodlatte appeared on the program with amnesty advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). Goodlatte said that he'd like the House to produce a bi-partisan bill, but working out the differences with the Senate-passed Gang of Eight's amnesty bill may be difficult.
"We would love to have a bipartisan group produce a bill because it would help to inform the House, just like the Senate bill helped to inform the Senate," Goodlatte said. "But 70 percent of the Republicans in the Senate voted against the immigration bill. Republicans are in the majority in the House. We want to work with Democrats. We want to work with Luis and others to do a bill, but not the Senate bill. And the compromise is going to have to come both in getting a bill out of the House and then in going to conference with the Senate to work out the differences."
Goodlatte also shared his thoughts on how House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to proceed on immigration.
"I think the Speaker wants to solve this problem. He wants to do it methodically, where we examine each of these issues separately, and we're doing that. And then he wants to find something that can pass the House. He says, and I agree with him, it would be best if it had the majority of both parties voting for it, and then we have to conference with the Senate," Goodlatte said.
For more information, see CNN.com.