USA TODAY International Edition
‘Pro-immigration’ lawmaker toes GOP line
Nevada’s Amodei reaches out to voters to explain his views
RENO Rep. Mark Amodei, who describes himself as a “pro-immigration Republican,” spent a morning in mid-August explaining to more than 20 Latino business leaders why he had voted to begin building a wall between the United States and Mexico.
Over plates of ham, potatoes and biscuits drenched in gravy, Amodei downplayed the Housepassed spending bill that included $1.6 billion to start building President Trump’s promised wall along the southern border.
The representative of Nevada’s 2nd District said that money would fund just 74 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile border and would take years to complete, if ever.
“I’m not gonna tell you that I’m blindly supporting anything, but … controlling exits and entries into a country — but especially entries into a country — is not, I think, a wild thing,” Amodei said. “Am I telling you, ‘Don’t worry about it, relax, everything is going to be fine?’ No, I’m just saying let’s put things in context.”
Amodei has hosted breakfast with Latino business leaders every few months for the past six years. Parts of the conversation at the August breakfast were tense, but for Amodei — whose district is almost a quarter Latino — honesty on immigration was earning him points with some in the Latino community.
“I wasn’t willing to shut the government down to cut $1.6 (billion) out of there, I’m sorry,” Amodei said as explanation for his vote for the appropriations bill that included the wall provision. Amodei was responding to a breakfast attendee who told him she always found him “fair and honest,” but after his most recent vote, she felt he was “picking on the Latinos.”
“I voted for the funding to get this started, and I will tell you as a general thing I have no long-term commitments in terms of that I will support this hell or high water,” Amodei said.
“We can speak directly to him and we can ask whatever we want. That’s why we like this guy,” Felipe Estrada, who owns the restaurant where Amodei hosted the breakfast, told USA TODAY.
Estrada said it was helpful to hear Amodei explain why he voted for the wall because Estrada had previously felt people who wanted a wall “don’t want us here.” After Amodei’s conversation, Estrada said he agreed with some parts of Amodei’s reasoning, particularly the national security aspect of a wall.
“He comes and gives us updates of what’s going on. … Whatever he does after he leaves here with our information … now (it) is up to him,” said Raquel Dittman, who owns a beauty salon. “I feel like he is more involved with the community, that he informs us better than any other” Nevada politician.
“I think he’s great, I think he likes to inform the community of what’s going on in Washington, and we really appreciate that, and I think he’s trying to do his best,” said Mira Vega Rios, who works for a real estate agency.
But even though she liked his governing approach, Amodei’s vote for wall funding had caused Vega Rios to question whether she’d vote for him again 2018.
“I really don’t agree” with his vote, she said.
In July, the House passed, 235192, a partial spending package for national security programs that included the wall money.
Even if Amodei hadn’t voted for the bill, it likely still would have made it across the finish line.
Republican leaders hope to add the national security package to a larger spending bill that would fund the government next year. Money for the wall is expected to be a lightning rod in the Senate, where Republicans have only a 52-48 majority. Democrats have been vocal about their dislike for the wall. Federal government funding runs out at the end of September, but last week at a rally in Phoenix, Trump said he’d be willing to shut down the government if the spending bill didn’t fund his wall.
Amodei represents the northern third of Nevada, including Reno and Carson City. The lawmaker also represents a district with a large rural population — which tends to be more conservative. Trump won the 2nd district by 12 points, and Amodei was Nevada state chairman of Trump’s campaign. So far, Amodei has voted with the president’s agenda 98% of the time, according to the politics website FiveThirtyEight.
Sam Kumar, who describes himself as an “immigration hawk,” said he disagrees with much of what he’s heard so far about Amodei’s views on immigration. Yet even though he’d like to see Amodei be tougher on immigration, Kumar sees Amodei as an effective messenger and respects how he is willing to explain his votes.
“I think people appreciate the fact that he’s willing to man up. He’s willing to meet with the people and say, ‘You may not like this, but these are the reasons why (I voted a certain way),’ ” said Kumar, who was the former GOP chair of Washoe County, which falls in Amodei’s district.
But some people think Amodei’s words are not enough.
“He’s a perfectly affable man; he just makes terrible decisions,” said Rick Shepherd, who describes himself as a progressive and is running against Amodei for Nevada’s 2nd District. Shepherd and a few others were protesting outside the restaurant where Amodei was hosting the breakfast. (Amodei’s seat is considered safe; he won it by 21 points in 2016.)
An example of what Shepherd called Amodei’s “terrible decisions”: Amodei’s role in the Trump campaign during the presidential election. One of Trump’s biggest campaign platforms was the promise to build a wall along the southern border.
“Which message is he trying to send? Is he trying to build a wall, or is he trying to reach out to the Hispanic community?” Shepherd said. “The only thing he’s inconsistent on is his inconsistency.”
“Do not call yourself ... ‘pro-immigration,’ ” said Xiomara Rodriguez, who works for an advocacy organization that helps undocumented immigrants in Reno. Rodriguez ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to unseat Amodei in 2012. “If you’re pro-immigration … you have to stand up to the party and to party leadership and say, ‘We want to pass a bill on immigration reform.’ ”
Amodei and a group of other Republicans working for immigration reform have met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, RWis., to try to get him to at least bring some immigration legislation to the House floor this year to see how members vote.
The Nevada Republican is a cosponsor of the Recognizing America’s Children Act, which was introduced by GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida. That bill would offer permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children before Jan. 1, 2012 — known as DREAMers — and who are employed, going to school or serving in the military for up to a 10-year conditional period, and then they can apply for legal permanent status.
That legislation was introduced by a group of moderate Republicans but has not been scheduled to come to the floor. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, is working on a companion bill to introduce in the Senate, his spokesman Daniel Keylin told USA TODAY.
Trump continues to weigh how to handle the nearly 800,000 DREAMers who were given temporary protection from deportation in an executive order issued by President Obama. Trump campaigned on a pledge to end the program but has also expressed sympathy for the DREAMers.
Amodei also said he might introduce legislation with ideas taken from a bipartisan group of House lawmakers that was negotiating an immigration package in 2013. That bill never moved, but Amodei plans to meet with members from both sides when Congress returns this week. He’s already been in discussions with Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California about the potential for bipartisan solutions.
“He’s willing to meet with people and say, ‘You may not like this, but these are the reasons why (I voted).’ ” Sam Kumar