Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Interview with Rep. Ron DeSantis

Interview

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INGRAHAM: Just in to us moments ago, the House GOP is releasing the text of their new immigration proposal expected to be brought to the floor as early as next week. Wow. What's the rush? Among the highlights -- ending the controversial policy known as catch and release, ensuring minors who enter the country illegally are not separated from the parents. That's not going to draw more people in. Calls for an end to the visa lottery system, but instead just reallocates the 55,000 visas to supposedly a merit-based program.

Let's discuss with Congressman Ron DeSantis. And money for the wall, apparently, $25 billion for the wall. Ron, no E-Verify which I'm told doesn't matter, but I think it matters. The chamber doesn't like E-Verify. E-Verify means you don't get to work unless you are verified to be legally in the country, correct? Chamber doesn't want it.

REP. RON DESANTIS, R--FLA.: Yes. And so if you are doing an amnesty that's 1.8, maybe more million people.

INGRAHAM: We didn't have that in the bullets, but there's a huge amnesty.

DESANTIS: Guess what's going to happen. That's going to create an incentive for more people to come illegally. And if you don't have E-Verify to kind of remove a disincentive, that wall, even if it's a good faith effort at the wall, and I'm not sure it is, that ain't going to be built in a day. You need to strip the courts of jurisdiction over lawsuits because this thing will get tied up forever with the wall. So without E-Verify you're going to have a border surge like we had in 2014. That obviously is going to have a lot of people moving but that's also a wet kiss to the drug cartels because they are going to be able to move a lot product across the border if there's a border --

INGRAHAM: I'm told asylum fraud is addressed, but again, it just was release, 293 pages. We haven't had time to go through the whole thing.

DESANTIS: Here's the thing, Laura, the Goodlatte bill has what we campaigned on. The Goodlatte bill and chain migration.

INGRAHAM: Here's what they say. They won't get it through. They won't get it through. It's not going to pass the Senate. It probably won't pass the House, although Paul Ryan, apparently it will be brought up next week. Then I hear Goodlatte was involved in writing this new bill. I don't know if he was or not.

DESANTIS: We need to defund sanctuary cities. We need E-Verify. We need to end chain migration, get rid of the diversity visa lottery. We need to do all those things. And look, make people go on record for that. It's not a popular vote in the Republican Party, but even in these Democrat district, people want E-Verify. It's not even a partisan thing at the grassroots level.

INGRAHAM: Business doesn't want E-Verify, so the money that is coming into these campaigns, they do not want to check the identity of people.

DESANTIS: And that means it undermines the rule of law, harms taxpayers, and lowers wages for Americans. That's not a good deal.

INGRAHAM: But they will say it's the best we can do. And it does address some of the chain migration. We'll see how much it addresses. We understand that the amnesty could reach parents as well. So it's not just the Dreamers. Parents are included.

DESANTIS: Don't forget, Laura, it's going to the Senate and either die or they're going to make yours. Those were the only two options. The Senate ain't going to just pass this. And so you're really running a risk that this could get --

INGRAHAM: Devil's advocate here. They say the Freedom Caucus people, you never can govern. You say you want to get something done but then when you can get something done, limit chain migration, bring down the immigration of the country, you just say no, were not going to do it.

DESANTIS: The goal is to end illegal immigration. This would fuel more illegal immigration if you don't have things like E-Verify. Will it work, yes or no?

INGRAHAM: The president has got to think long and hard about this because this seems like a bum's rush to me. I do like the feeling of being rushed.

DESANTIS: No committee hearings.

INGRAHAM: That's convenient.

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