Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul argued Sunday that the border security provisions in the Senate immigration bill are merely “candy” added to the bill to lure votes, not a serious set of reforms that would effectively secure the border.
“What our bill calls for is a plan and a strategy, which we haven’t had for a decade. It calls for metrics to measure success and it defines operation control. These are all key ingredients because we haven’t had that before,” McCaul said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” while laying out differences between a possible House bill on immigration reform and the existing Senate bill.
“In the past, all we’ve done is thrown money down at the problem on an ad hoc basis and it hasn’t worked,” he continued. “And what the Senate just passed was, again, a bunch, you know, candy thrown down there, a bunch of assets thrown down there to gain votes, but without a methodical, smart border approach. We want a smart border. We also want a smart immigration plan, something that makes sense.”
Comparing the Senate immigration bill to Obamacare, McCaul, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said American voters don’t want bulky, comprehensive pieces of legislation.
“They don’t want a comprehensive bill like what we saw with Obamacare that passed in the middle of the night,” he said. “And now we’re seeing what all the problems are in that bill. They don’t want comprehensive.”
McCaul also said he suspects President Obama may want the bill to fail in the House for political purposes.
“My concern is the political backdrop could be that the White House would like to see this fail in the House, so that he can blame the House of Representatives for that and then try to take back the House of Representatives and then all bets are off on his agenda,” he said.
House Republicans will discuss immigration reform in a conference on Wednesday.
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