While no legislation was on the table yet, a House Judiciary subcommittee took up the underlying components of the KIDS Act, a Republican rewrite of the DREAM Act that addresses the children of undocumented workers living in the country. Republicans, some of whom previously opposed the Democratic DREAM Act, now insist children should be addressed separately than other illegal immigrants.
“We all view children as a special, protected class,” said subcommittee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. “Children and the issues that impact their lives unite us like nothing else. And because children are a special class, the law treats children differently in almost every regard.”
However, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, warned that providing citizenship to these individuals will lead to “back-door amnesty” for their parents.
“If you legalize people that are here in this country unlawfully and you waive the application — even if there were children — and you waive the application of the law on their parents especially — if they’re the ones that brought them to commit this act, then who do you enforce the law against?” King asked.
While King speaks as an staunch skeptic of immigration reform efforts, his concerns are echoed by many in the GOP. House Republicans don’t want to address all 11 million undocumented individuals as one group, but provide separate solutions and statuses for illegal immigrants that have reached the U.S. under different circumstances.
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