Steve King Quotes

I was part of the gang of eight in the house in 2013 that was working on comprehensive immigration reform. We talked a lot about border security and what was effective and what was not. Walls are not effective when you're out in the desert and you don't need them.

Sen. Robert Menendez's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 would try to nullify every single state and local law that fights illegal immigration. Congressman Luis Gutierrez's CIR ASAP Act with over 100 Democratic co-sponsors does the same thing.

Immigration reform almost happened under President George W. Bush. Twice. And it was comprehensive.

Comprehensive immigration reform should be debated and passed by Congress.

We need immigration reform, but we need open-air, smaller bills that are germane to an issue and have an open discussion with the American people.

Democrats didn't agree with policies. How do I know? Because they voted against them when they came up on the floor of the House and the Senate.

The immigration bill is going to pass. We're going to have a bill. It's going to get through the Senate. I think the fundamentals are there and the foundation is strong and the bill is going to happen. The House is going to be trickier, but I think it's going to happen there too.

Instead of working to undo POTUS exec action, we need to workcollaboratively to achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

We know the legislation that passed the House. It was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress.

If we have a Democratic Senate I think the Republican Party will wake up to the reality that their opposition to comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship is a losing proposition. That Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and derogatory comments do not really work in a national election. And I think we'll have a better chance to actually get something done.

Laws themselves, political Constitutions, are not our Life; but only the house wherein our Life is led.

Look what the American people did with the comprehensive immigration bill. That was all lined up to get past and the American people spoke and then many members of Congress who were in favor of it changed their mind.

The good news is that we really do think that ... on the immigration issue, that we will, before summer, have comprehensive immigration reform.

The Democratic line is that the Republican House does nothing but block and oppose. In fact, it has passed hundreds of bills only to have them die upon reaching the desk of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He has rendered the Senate inert by simply ensuring that any bill that might present a politically difficult vote for his Democratic colleagues never even comes to the floor.

Barak Obama said as much today talking about immigration. (imitating Obama) "I don't care what happens today. It is gonna happen. We are going to have comprehensive immigration reform. We're gonna have amnesty for these 11 or 12 million. It's gonna happen. You just wait." And that's the way they go about it. Defeat is not something that, in their minds, is lasting.

The only reason the House hasn't done even more damage is that the Senate often sands down the most noxious ideas, making the bills merely bad, not disastrous.

The shuffle only demonstrated people's fatuous belief in a political cure for a human condition.

The wonder is not that the world is so easily governed, but that so small a number of persons will suffice for the purpose. There are dead weights in political and legislative bodies as in clocks, and hundreds answer as pulleys who would never do for politicians.

George W. Bush's position on illegal immigration is a perfect example of a political compromise. A true conservative would have built a border fence, dug a moat and stationed troops on the border long ago.

Why would I want to run for Congress and continue to get tainted with all the things that people get tainted with as they come along the system.

I think health care reform is challenging and challenged. We will see what happens, but this is a difficult topic that touches every American family. And the more members of the Senate and the House both know about it, I think the harder it is to reach that conclusion you would like to get to.

The Senate was the equivalent of an aristocracy at the beginning. Senators were not even elected; they were appointed in the early days. Then that changed, and senators did become elected. But the Senate is designed to slow down out-of-control, madcap activity elsewhere in the legislative branch (i.e., in the House), and the 60-vote rule was part of that.

I think the women in the political positions will push very, very hard to see that there are loans and banks for women in Rwanda.

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

I salute the House for having the courage to stand up and fight and defund ObamaCare. And I remain confident, hopeful and optimistic the House will stand their ground, will continue the fight, which means this issue is coming back to the Senate. And when it comes back to the Senate, after the House stands their ground yet again, we will have an opportunity for Republicans to come home.