Republican governors gathering for their yearly fall meetings were eager to criticize the apparent dysfunction amongst lawmakers in Washington, but less quick to come up with actual solutions to some of the more urgent legislative issues of the moment, including the problem of comprehensive immigration reform.
Congressional lawmakers from both of the major political parties are in agreement that the current immigration system just does not work, but the legislative process has come to a standstill with doubt growing that any compromise will ever be able to make it past the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republican Party. Yesterday Republican governors were insisting that this stalemate in Congress has to be broken, but it is not clear precisely how they expect lawmakers to mend the system.
“The fact is that we have a broken immigration system in this country that needs to be fixed, and how it needs to be fixed will be determined, if they finally get to work, by the national leaders in this country, starting with the President, and continuing with the leaders in Congress, to sit down and come up with a solution,” says the Republican Governors Association’s new chairman, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. “What that solution contains is going to be up to them to determine.”
Christie refused to comment on whether or not he personally supports the idea of offering a path to US citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which is one of the major bones of contention between the Republicans and the Democrats.