Rep. Labrador: GOP Can Pass 'In Between' Immigration Law

There were enough Republicans voting for both immigration bills that the 214 votes that are needed to pass legislation could be reached that offers "something between" the two proposals, House Subcommittee on Immigration Chairman Raul Labrador said Monday.

However, the Idaho Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," that he agrees with President Donald Trump's statements that Democrats do not want the nation's borders to be secure, no matter how much they may insist they do.

"I think we'll continue to try to put something together," Labrador said. "If you look at the two bills that we tried to pass in the last couple of weeks, one got 193 votes. The other one received less votes than that by quite a few votes. What we noticed is that there were enough Republicans voting for both bills that could get us to 214 votes that we need."

However, one can look at what Democrats are saying to know they don't want secure borders, he added.

"They want to abolish ICE, they want to have catch and release," said Labrador. "They want to make sure that people come to the United States and get released into the public."

In addition, every time there is a bill in the House that includes border security at the same time as there is legislation to benefit DACA recipients, "they are unwilling to sign onto it," said Labrador.

"The only thing they want to sign onto is a bill that has weak security and a lot of amnesty. Republicans are not going to sign up for that."

Labrador also called Democrats' growing call to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as "ridiculous."

"If you look at what ICE is doing, we're trying to protect our nation from people that are coming here illegally," he said. "We aren't a nation if we don't have borders. We need to have border security, we need to have interior security, we do need to have an immigration system that works."

The lawmaker added he doesn't think it's a winning formula for Democrats to oppose border security legislation.

"They'll have a very difficult time winning," he said. "That's why we'll keep the majorities in the House and be able to keep the Senate. I think we will increase the number of senators in the U.S. Senate."

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