Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Tea Party Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Uses Boston Marathon Bombing To Justify Opposing Immigration Reform

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/16/1874071/steve-king-boston-immigration/

If you're looking for an example of a politician cloaking his cowardice in principle, look no further than Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the Boston Marathon bombing that left three dead and more than 150 injured, King gave an interview to National Review Online where he used the attack to justify his opposition to immigration reform.

From the interview:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday's bombing in Boston, where three people were killed.

"Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa," King says. "If that's the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture."

On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold. "We need to be ever vigilant," he says. "We need to go far deeper into our border crossings. . . .We need to take a look at the visa-waiver program and wonder what we're doing. If we can't background check people that are coming from Saudi Arabia, how do we think we are going to background check the 11 to 20 million people that are here from who knows where."

To be clear, investigators still do not know who perpetrated the attack. The "speculation" King is referring to involves an apparent case of racial profiling, whereby a college student of Saudi nationality was tackled by bystanders because he was fleeing the blast. He "appears to have no connection to the case," according to the Christian Science Monitor.



rest http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/16/1874071/steve-king-boston-immigration/

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