House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway expects a “more nuanced” approach to immigration policy to emerge as the field of contenders for the Republican presidential nomination is whittled down, said Agri-Pulse. It quoted Conaway as saying, “Right now, it’s just kind of slashing around with a meat cleaver and not a lot of detail on what all of us would like to see, and that is if you’re in this country legally, you can work. If you’re here illegally, you can’t work and you can’t be here.”
Conaway said a “rational approach” would include ensuring there is a guest-worker program that meets farm labor needs and offers legal status to undocumented immigrants already in the United States after they pay “appropriate fines and penalties for having broken the law.”
Immigration reform has been at a standstill for more than two years in Congress.