Constituents seek to influence immigration reform
by Mitch Carr
GREENSBORO, N.C. — An immigration reform bill has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and will go to the full U.S. Senate for a vote, but Congress is in recess for another week.
Until they return, constituents will be trying to influence representatives and senators to vote their way.
Those efforts were on full display Thursday in front of Sen. Kay Hagan’s Greensboro office on Green Valley Road.
Demonstrators with multiple labor unions marched up to Hagan’s office to tell her to support the bill.
In a written statement, Hagan said she is reviewing the bill to see what’s best for North Carolina.
At Belews Lake on Wednesday, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page met with Congressman Howard Coble.
Page then left for St. Louis Thursday evening to attend a national conference of constitutional sheriffs. He hopes to convince Coble and those sheriffs to oppose the reform bill.
Coble said he had not read the Senate’s bill, but what other members of Congress had told him about it bothered him.
“I think there’s more questions than answers,” Coble said.
Even if the bill passes in the Senate, a House version would have to be proposed, which Coble could then vote on.
Senator Richard Burr’s staff said he was out of the country and had not yet decided on his position on the bill.
“He’s still listening to his constituents,” a staffer said.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx said she did not support this attempt at immigration reform.
In an op-ed she said she favored incremental legislation rather than comprehensive legislation that was too big and left too much room for error.
“If we’ve learned anything from ObamaCare it’s that Washington isn’t too good at ‘comprehensive’ solutions. Massive laws inevitably fall short of promises and leave the country begging for real reform,” Foxx wrote.
