Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Amodei says he would vote against Senate immigration bill

Mark Amodei

Mark Amodei

Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said this week he does not support the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill, but will continue work on a series of bills the Republican majority in the House is beginning to craft.

Asked if he would vote for the measure the Senate passed by a wide margin last month, Amodei answered: "No, I wouldn't."

But in an interview taped for the public affairs television program To the Point, Amodei voiced support for several broad concepts in the immigration bill, including measures allowing immigrants here illegally to "earn legal status" and the DREAM Act, which would allow young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children a pathway to citizenship.

Amodei, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee responsible for crafting the series of immigration bills has also voted in favor of a House measure that would make it a federal crime to reside illegally in the United States and would give broad enforcement power to local authorities.

He said it's not the intention of the House to kill immigration reform.

"I think we'll pass our flavor of it," he said. "It will be in several different bills, not one. But at the end of the day we'll have something that will get us to conference."

Conference committees are tasked with finding compromises on legislation that differs when it is passed out of the respective chambers.

Amodei recently voted to defund President Barack Obama's program deferring enforcement actions against so-called Dreamer immigrants, as well as a measure that would halt the program altogether. But he said that's not because he opposes finding a way to give legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

"Dreamers deserve to have predictability and stability," Amodei said. "With all due respect to the president, his executive order leaves it at the whim of the administrations and at that whim of funding. Do we need to deal with Dreamers? Absolutely. Should it be law? Absolutely. Should it have its own dedicated funding? Yes."

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy