Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, said Sunday that he approved of the actions in the president’s immigration executive order — it’s the way the president issued the changes that could make compromise more difficult in Washington.
“We did much of what the president did, in fact went even further, in the Senate bill,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The problem is the way he did it is going to make it very difficult to move the other parts of immigration reform that we really need.”
While his Republican colleagues in the House filed a lawsuit against the president for overstepping his executive reach last week, Mr. Flake said the response should be lawmakers passing a bill of their own.
“I do think that the president moved beyond his authority,” he said. “Having said that, from my role in the Senate, I think we ought to put legislation on the president’s desk. That ought to be the response.”
Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat, said the president’s executive order is a good first step to reforming the broken immigration system.
“As a result of the president’s actions, more felons will be deported, more border control will be at the southern border, more people will pay taxes and more families will be able to stay together,” he said.
Despite that, Mr. Menendez said lawmakers should not take the president’s actions as a sign that it isn’t urgent to act on further reforms.
• Jacqueline Klimas can be reached at jklimas@washingtontimes.com.
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