Rep. Ryan Argues For Immigration Reform Bill

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) is breaking with some fellow Republicans and arguing in favor of a new immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship. But Ryan is drawing skeptics from both sides of the issue.

With his national loss last year along with presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Ryan knows better than most Republican politicians about the GOP’s recent difficulties in attracting Latino voters. But Ryan says his general support for the immigration bill recently introduced in the Senate is not an attempt to win those votes: “No, I’m trying to fix a broken problem that we all acknowledge needs fixing.”

Ryan told town hall meetings Monday in Dousman and Janesville that he backs a combination of better border security, a mandatory ‘e-verify’ system to crack down on employers hiring undocumented workers, and making the undocumented already here go through a citizenship path that could take at least a decade. Joan Eisert of Mukwonago says that’s too long a time.

“To wait 15 years to become a citizen after you’ve lived here quite a while is ridiculous.”

Ryan is also hearing skepticism from more conservative voters. Cheryl Gray of Janesville says she isn’t sure the offer of a path to citizenship would encourage the undocumented to come forward.

“What happens if they don’t? We’re having trouble getting them deported now – the people who are illegal here – so if they don’t come out of the woodwork, where do we stand with the people who are still illegal here?”

Ryan says he also wants the House of Representatives to finish drafting its own immigration bill, though he won’t say how he wants the measure to be different from the Senate version.