This afternoon, Senator Marco Rubio hit back at Iowa representative Steve King, who earlier today told National Review Online that Congress should be careful about proceeding with immigration reform in the wake of yesterday’s bombing in Boston.
“We should really be very cautious about using language that links these two things in any way,” Rubio told reporters. “We know very little about Boston other than that it was obviously an act of terror. We don’t know who carried it out or why they carried it out, and I would caution everyone to be very careful about linking the two.”
Early reports indicated that law-enforcement officials were guarding a Saudi national in the country on a student visa and had identified him as a ”person of interest.” In light of that information, King said, ”We need to take a look at the visa-waiver program and wonder what we’re doing. If we can’t background-check people that are coming from Saudi Arabia, how do we think we are going to background check the 11 to 20 million people that are here from who knows where?” The latest reports indicate the student is not in fact a suspect.
Despite King’s warnings, the “Gang of Eight” are moving forward with their immigration bill, and are set to introduce it on the Senate floor tomorrow.