Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) predicted Thursday that President Trump will eventually sign into law sweeping immigration reform similar to the legislation enacted by former President Reagan in 1986.
“I believe with all of my being that this president is going to be the one to put his signature on the bill that solves our immigration challenges for another four decades just like Ronald Reagan did in the ‘80s,” Woodall told Hill.TV, referring to the Immigration Reform and Control Act that Reagan signed.
“I just need my Democratic colleagues to let the steam off of their side of the pot — you how it is these days: If President Trump says it’s sunny outside, they say it’s cloudy outside,” he added. “We’re in that us against them era.”
The Georgia Republican added that he hopes his party can work together with Democrats to address the issue, saying, “We are in the solutions business, not the blame business.”
Trump has called on Congress to “immediately eliminate” immigration and security loopholes that he says are creating a national emergency.
“Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border!,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close.”
The president also doesn’t appear to be backing down from his threats to shut down points of entry at the southern border in response to a surge of migrant families seeking asylum and immigration processing.
Woodall defended Trump’s move, even though business leaders and other GOP lawmakers have warned the president against carrying out his threat.
“We’ve got to try a lot of different things to make this work,” Woodall said. “What you’ve seen the president do since day one of his administration is to try to turn what was a crisis situation in the Obama administration in the right direction.”
Border security agents, meanwhile, estimate that the number of people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border could reach 1 million by the end of the year, according to a report by ABC News.
—Tess Bonn
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