No law enforcement officials or representatives spoke to endorse the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill on Thursday at the group’s Capitol Hill press conference announcing it. Instead, at the “Gang of Eight” press conference, as USA Today reported they would be, the senators were “joined by business leaders, like the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as labor leaders from the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union.”
At the presser, Gang of Eight member Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the bill means “the business community and organized labor rose to the occasion.”
Across Capitol Hill at a press conference that began 15 minutes earlier held by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), and Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) to oppose the bill, several members of the law enforcement community expressed their dissatisfaction with the Gang of Eight bill.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers union president Chris Crane and border sheriffs from New Mexico and Arizona, law enforcement officials who deal with the issue of illegal immigration on a daily basis, announced their opposition to the bill.
Barletta himself is a former mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a town that, despite its distance from the border, faced serious illegal immigration issues during his time leading the city.
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