Last week, the Center for Migration Studies hosted a day-long symposium in New York addressing a wide variety of immigration and refugee issues. (CMS is a Catholic think tank that generally promotes higher levels of immigration and looser enforcement.) The final speaker at the event was Kevin Appleby, the Catholic bishops' longtime point man on immigration policy. His comments to the largely like-minded crowd on Paul Ryan reinforce concerns about the immigration views of the new Speaker of the House. Here are some excerpts (emphasis added):
The big news this week, and was confirmed today, is that Paul Ryan is the new Speaker of the House. And there's good news there and bad news there. The good news is that he was one of Speaker Boehner's sort of lieutenants in trying to round up votes for legislation last year to pass comprehensive immigration reform. He and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida were the ones that were working on getting Republican votes for a package to pass right when Eric Cantor lost. …
Here's a guy who understands the issue, who I think supports the issue. And I think in the long run will be committed to the issue.
Bad news, however, you might have heard, is that he's made a two-fold promise to the Republican Caucus that, first of all, that he won't bring up immigration reform under President Obama. Now that’s not a big surprise. I don't think it would have passed before the election in any case. The second thing he did was more troubling, is that he said that as long as he is Speaker he'll still employ the Hastert Rule on immigration bills. ...
The possible silver lining here, though, is I think that he will stop bad things from happening. I think that he will prevent bills that have been passed by the judiciary committee, for example, from getting to the floor. Because he understands it'll opening a Pandora's box, number one, but number two, what it looks like nationally for the Republican party.
Watch Appleby's comments for yourself on the symposium's site, starting at 7:34:30: http://cmsny.org/2015symposium/
Topics: Politics