ASHLAND- At last Thursday's Federal Legislative Summit, held at Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum, the topic of legal and illegal immigration was discussed by Nebraska Congress members. Reps. Don Bacon, Mike Flood, Adrian Smith, and Sen. Ben Sasse talked about business issues in Nebraska, including the democratic push to fill vacant positions with immigrant workers.

The delegation of Congressmen stated that if businesses in Nebraska wanted to see any immigration reform to fill the thousands of vacant positions, they would have to take the lead in pushing for reform. However, the delegation also emphasized the difficulty in passing immigration reform, saying that legal immigration often gets lumped into illegal immigration when discussing the issue.

"I think it could be good for our constituents in our districts to hear what businesses are going through right now in trying to hire...I guarantee you, probably the No. 1 issue besides inflation right now is the southern border...If they knew your needs a little better and your hard work on it, I think that will help us do more," stated Rep. Don Bacon.

Despite this discussion of immigration reform, however, Rep. Mike Flood stated that he would prefer to "recruit from within," and emphasized the importance of sharing these opportunities first with Nebraska citizens. "There's a bigger national security issue wrapped around immigration. I do not see us making any major progress until we stop the flow of guns and drugs across the border," Flood stated. Rep. Flood will be visiting the U.S.-Mexico border on Monday this week.

Sen. Sasse claimed that the past two presidents have done almost nothing to move legal immigration forward, and claimed it will take a large-scale push to obtain reform; much larger than has been done in the past. "We have had two administrations in a row that haven't in any serious way wanted to fix any of this. They wanted to maintain an issue they could use for politics rather than solving policy issues in front of the American people," Sasse stated.

For the full article click HERE