Congressman Lamar Smith, Twenty First Congressional
District of Texas
Washington, DC – Ranking Member Lamar Smith (TX-21) issued the following statement today following Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s remarks at the Center for American Progress.
Ranking Member Smith: “First, the administration used phantom statistics about jobs created or saved to justify its massive spending spree. Now the administration credits the poor state of the American economy and dearth of jobs for reducing illegal immigration. It is ironic that a poor economy is their justification for amnesty.
“How can they allow 12 million illegal immigrants to take jobs that should go to citizens and legal immigrants? And how can they claim that enforcement is “done” when there are more than 400 open miles of border with Mexico, hundreds of thousands of criminal and fugitive aliens and millions of illegal immigrants taking American jobs?
“The single most effective thing that DHS could do to create jobs for American workers would be to conduct vigorous worksite enforcement and to actually deport the illegal immigrant workers so they don’t remain here to compete with citizen and legal immigrant job-seekers.”
