January 31, 2013 03:15 PM UTC

Border security aside, would Gardner support a path to citizenship?

• 2 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

It's obvious that KHOW's Michael "Heck've-a-Job" Brownie is not a journalist.

But his conversation with Rep. Cory Gardner yesterday on the immigration issue is instructive to reporters who interview anyone, Republican or Democrat, on the topic.

They key issue in this debate is the path to citizenship. Will one be offered to undocumented immigrants? How long would they have to wait to become citizens, and what will their rights be during this period?  How many new citizens should our country accept and by when? Is anyone concerned that a long waiting period would create an underclass of pseudo Americans?

Brownie doesn't bother to get Gardner's views on the citizenship issue at all, much less the details.

Instead, Brown's focus was border security (surprise!) and how to avoid getting "rolled over like President Reagan did back in the 80’s?"

This is a real issue, but it's one that the players appear to agree on.
<blockquote>Gardner <a href="http://bigmedia.org/talk-radio-transcripts-edward-r-murrows-bad-dream/michael-brown-show-cory-gardner-january-30-2013/" target="_blank">argued for</a> "putting a policy in place that doesn’t just delay a problem or create a problem in ten to twenty years. And I don’t know that we’re there yet with the policies that have been put forward. But that’s a very serious point that you bring up and something that is going to have to be addressed and people have to feel satisfied with it, [that] it’s not just delaying a bigger problem.</blockquote>
Gardner sounds like border security is all that's needed. So let's assume, for argument's sake, that his can be done. Would Gardner, who opposed <a href="http://bigmedia.org/2013/01/11/reporter-lauds-clear-headed-gardner-for-understanding-need-to-expand-gop-tent-but-fails-to-note-his-support-of-personhood-and-his-hostility-toward-hispanics/" target="_blank">offering citizenship to undocumented immigrants just three years ago</a>, please offer up some details on what an acceptable path to citizenship would look like?

Transcript of Rep. Cory Gardner's comments on immigration on <a href="http://bigmedia.org/talk-radio-transcripts-edward-r-murrows-bad-dream/michael-brown-show-cory-gardner-january-30-2013/" target="_blank">KHOW's Michael Brown Show, Jan. 30, 2013.</a>

BROWN: What's happening on the Hill with immigration, and what’s your personal feelings?

GARDNER: Well, my personal feeling — you know, my family—our last name used to be ‘Gardiner’ [spells it out]. They moved to England so that they could get into soup lines, that—to get food. They took out the ‘I’ in our last name to get into those lines. And I would like to believe that every single one of us, if we were living in a world that faced civil unrest, that faced murders, that faced mob control, –we would do anything and everything we could to get our families into the greatest country on the face of the Earth, the United States. But we have got to make sure that we have a system that is based on law, that is legal, that has border security, that promotes fairness. And I want to make sure that any proposal that we have, that comes forward out of Congress, meets the requirement [inaudible] of fairness, border security, to make sure that we are not penalizing people who are actually trying to get through the system legally.

BROWN: One of the things that came up last night, and I don’t even know if you can answer this in the next minute in a half, but, what’s different, and what assurances would I or anybody else who think the this issue at least ought to be addressed, that we’re not going to get rolled over like President Reagan did back in the 80’s?

GARDNER: Well, and that’s where we [inaudible] do the right job of putting a policy in place that doesn’t just delay a problem or create a problem in ten to twenty years. And I don’t know that we’re there yet with the policies that have been put forward. But that’s a very serious point that you bring up and something that is going to have to be addressed and people have to feel satisfied with it, [that] it’s not just delaying a bigger problem.

BROWN: Do you have any opinion or thoughts on how we can literally secure the borders?

GARDNER: I think there are a number of ways that we can secure the borders. We are doing it right now with additional personnel, and do we need additional personnel on the border; whether we need some kind of electronic enforcement; do we need a better system of knowing who’d coming in and out, those can be done electronically, those can be done physically, with personnel on the border. But they’re all parts of a broader solution that I think needs to be put in place.