WASHINGTON — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) had two messages Friday about the need for immigration reform: the status quo is dumb, and not fixing it for political reasons would be even dumber.
“To be blunt, we have a dumb system,” he said during remarks on immigration, using a phrase he’d repeat a few times. “Why would we build the dumb system that we have today to say, we don’t want you here?”
Snyder spoke, along with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, at an event focused on immigration, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, Republicans for Immigration Reform, and the group launched by Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, Partnership for a New American Economy.
The speakers’ aim is to convince others that immigration reform is necessary to strengthen the economy and the nation as a whole, and to lend encouragement to members of the House of Representatives who agree. But they declined to give the names or parties of their opponents, instead saying that some on both sides are playing the issue politically.
