CULLMAN — Immigration continues to be a top issue for Republican voters interested in the early stages of the 2020 U.S. Senate GOP primary in Alabama, which was on display Tuesday night at a gathering of the Cullman County Republican Women.
Republican U.S. Senate hopeful U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope) was in attendance to speak to the group about his campaign and fielded questions from attendees, one of which was about the immigration issue.
The question dealt with the prospect of an amnesty being offered to illegal immigrants in the United States. Byrne expressed his opposition and cited his years in Congress with former U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, who in 2017 left the U.S. Senate to serve as U.S. attorney general for President Donald Trump.
“I am totally opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens,” Byrne said. “You know, I do a lot of town halls in my congressional role. And it’s not unusual for me to do a town hall, get a question kind of like that and there will be a person in the back of the room and say, ‘I came here from x country, went through a long and difficult and expensive process to become a naturalized citizen. And I resent people who walked across the line and expect to be treated the same way I’m treated. So think about: As a matter of fairness to them, we shouldn’t give them amnesty. But to give them amnesty makes a travesty of our legal system. We have laws, and you’re not supposed to do that. And we’re just going to let you get away with that? Absolutely not.”
“So, I know there are some people running in this race that are for amnesty,” he continued. “That’s their right, but I don’t believe in that. My votes in the United States House of Representatives have always been very consistent about that. Jeff Sessions, when he was our U.S. Senator, was a major leader on that issue and taught me a lot about it. And I’m glad I had my years with Jeff to explain to me how this stuff works. So I am totally opposed to amnesty. I’ve already voted that way in the United States House of Representatives, and I’ll continue to vote that way in the U.S. Senate.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
