Republican Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania said last week that policies friendly to undocumented immigrants “reward people who want to tear down our laws and make us a third-world country.”
Speaking with radio host Lars Larson at the anti-immigrant group FAIR’s “Hold Their Feet to The Fire” event, Barletta complained about “sanctuary cities,” which he has previously proposed cutting off from federal funding. Barletta is the former mayor of Hazleton, Pa., where he enacted one of the harshest anti-immigrant ordinances in the country, which was struck down by federal courts before it could ever be enforced.
“We continue to send federal dollars to mayors who are above the law,” he said. “And then you have a mayor, such as myself in Hazleton, who gets sued for wanting to enforce the laws.
“And there’s something wrong with the direction this country’s been going when we begin to reward people who want to tear down our laws and make us a third-world country where we get to pick and choose what we want to do.”
Larson: If the party picks [Jeb Bush] as the nominee, they’re sending a powerful message to Americans that we’re going to give away the vote and we’re going to give away the whole meaning of what it means to obey the law.
Barletta: Absolutely, and it’s what made our country so exceptional is that we were a country that has laws, and you cannot pick and choose what laws you enforce and what laws you can’t. But here you have in the case of immigration — illegal immigration — you have mayors who declare themselves sanctuary cities, who are not going to enforce immigration laws. Nothing happens to them. We continue to send federal dollars to mayors who are above the law. And then you have a mayor, such as myself in Hazleton, who gets sued for wanting to enforce the laws.
And there’s something wrong with the direction this country’s been going when we begin to reward people who want to tear down our laws and make us a third-world country where we get to pick and choose what we want to do.
