REP. STEVE KING: ‘There’s Not a Tradeoff Worth Sacrificing the Rule of Law’

Congressman Steve King represents the 4th district of Iowa, and is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. 

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio, this is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. Among the men whose intelligence as well as his courage, his convictions, and his leadership I’ve come to appreciate most in official Washington, is our first guest, he is Congressman Steve King. He represents with the greatest of distinction the people of the fourth district of Iowa. And he has been a leader on so many issues both in his capacity as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Chairman of the House Conservative Opportunity Society, and is just a great spokesman for the patriotism and the kind of national values we have associated with our country for so long. Steven King, it’s great to have you sir, welcome back!

REP. STEVE KING:

Well Frank, thanks a lot for having me on. And we usually come to a mutual view on so many issues that I’m awfully glad to have this conversation with you today. I appreciate your work.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Thank you, well, we are definitely on the mind of what I am particularly interested in talking with you about and that is the state of our character of a nation really, is the way you’ve put it, we either have a country or we don’t. and I’d like to talk with you on that connection about DACA and what President Trump is doing with respect to deferred action for childhood arrivals, as it’s known better as its acronym, DACA. The state of play is highly dynamic it seems at the moment but generally speaking, what is your thought about the program, the idea of congressing getting you know a statutory standing and what it would mean if we get it without some sort of enhanced security along our southern border?

REP. STEVE KING:

Well you know the immigration issue is I think the most complex issue we deal with, more complex even than Obamacare and healthcare. But with the DACA component of this, we just need to refresh our memory on a few things, and one of them is Barak Obama said twenty-two times on video tape that he didn’t have the constitutional authority to implement a waiver of the law as applied against those who came in here before their 18^th birthdays whether or not it was through no fault of their own. And he made it really clear many times, but he issued it anyway because he calculated he could get away with it politically, violating his constitutional role, violating the separation of powers and he did get away with it. And then when Donald Trump came in he was elected in a significant part because of a strong position about restoring the respect for the rule of law, securing our border, enforcing domestic immigration law.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Including stopping DACA right on day 1 as I recall.

REP. STEVE KING:

January 20^th, noon I thought it would be over. And now we are 8 months into this and now he’s hung the bait out in front of Congress and said, “Oh I will end it in six months, right in the middle of the primary seasons for the midterm election.” And the implication is if Congress doesn’t pass some kind of amnesty that is DACA, then he might expand it. Who knows what he’s going to do. Plus, he’d like to have some border enforcement with it. See I don’t think there’s a tradeoff worth sacrificing the rule of law, Frank.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

I agree with you Congressman. Let me ask you, there has been some too-ing and fro-ing about this so I’m a little unclear about where it actually stands, but his new friends, as he calls them Chuck and Nancy, that would be Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, respectively the Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House, he seems to be saying that there will be a deal that he will quickly sign it into law, that there will be no wall money but perhaps other border enhancements. As a man who has seriously thought about and worked for securing our Southern border most especially congressman, does it make sense for us to be taking even less than half a loaf here with respect to the wall? Wow important is it if you’re going to engage in an amnesty program of any kind that you stop the incomings of more people seeking amnesty?

REP. STEVE KING:

Well I think that. And you know I have studied this a lot for a long time, made multiple trips to the border and spent my life in the construction business so we could go down and build that wall and it would work. We could put the manpower in place to maintain it, monitor it. It’s cheap in comparison to what we are doing now. But I think the president is in a place now where he’s hung the bait out there for DACA and there’s a feeding frenzy that was created by it. I think Chuck and Nancy, as he refers to them as, they were dinner guests at the White House. And looks to me that Chuck and Nancy, they more or less betrayed the president’s message out of there, or hijacked it would be a maybe more accurate term, characterized at least through [inaudible] as a deal on DACA with no deal on the wall. And the President has been watching that back as we speak, so it’s a mess that’s been created, unnecessarily. And Frank I just want to add this, we should have the wall, we should have border security, we should have domestic enforcement, we should have new legislation that makes the domestic enforcement better and stronger and we’ve moved much of that out of the House or at least out of the House Judiciary Committee and to serve it up and trade it and say we’re going to give you amnesty for DACA just so we can get the things the American people demanded as a mandate when they elected Donald trump. Part of the mandate was end DACA. It’s like all of the eggs are in one basket, and we are ready to break all kinds of eggs just to get a tiny little one out of there which would be the end of the argument about DACA. I think that a good number of members of Congress haven’t thought this true clearly, what I learned from my time is that they arrive in Congress without having gone through significant immigration debate, and most of what they know is what they learn during the debate and we haven’t had much.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Right, and it’s not for lack of your trying that’s for sure. You didn’t mention E-Verify in the litany, I know you’ve been attaching to the various appropriations bills which I am sorry to say, never seem to go anywhere anymore, at least in the U.S. Senate. But talk about the importance of the E-verify provisions that you’ve thought and ought to be applied, obviously.

REP. STEVE KING:

Well yes and I want to say, Ken Calvert of California, brought the E-Verify program probably 20 years ago as the basic pilot program. It started as a pilot program, they began to develop it out, and now E-verify has come to the point where you are an employer and there was a legitimate proposal or offer, you could take that respective employee’s information, I call it name rank and serial number, pop it into E-verify, and in seconds you get an answer back if it can confirm if that individual can legally work in the U.S. And it’s accurate up in the 99 point percentile and the error factor there is usually when someone has gotten married and didn’t change their maiden name to their married name. So , it’s an excellent program, it works good, to make it mandatory for all employers in America would help a lot to start cleaning up the illegal employment that’s taking place there.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

And shutting off the magnet for more amnesty seeking individuals coming into this country immediately needless to say.

REP. STEVE KING:

Well, it does that or at least it shuts it down significantly, if not completely off. It leaves the opening there for somebody that’s providing false information, document fraud, social security number and birth certificate and those things that would be utilized for identification, or they could just present their information falsely, the information of someone who can legally work in America. So, E-verify is not perfect but it is the best we have and it needs to be made mandatory. I have another bill that takes E-Verify to another level with that and it clarifies that, it’s called the New Illegal Deduction Elimination Act. And so, it clarifies that deducting wages paid is not a legitimate tax reduction, not a business expense. The IRS would come in under my bill, run an audit and punch the information of the employees that are listed on the schedule as a business expense, the wages to them, pop that into E-verify, if it comes back that they cannot lawfully work in America, they can deny that as a business deduction. So, say you are an employer, and you have a million dollars in wages out to illegals, the IRS would do an audit on you, you’re going to be vulnerable [inaudible]. The IRS would run these numbers through the E-Verify base, and if they can determine there are illegals working in America, they would say, “Sorry you can’t deduct a million dollars a year as a business expense. Now it’s taxable income, and we are going to charge you interest and penalty on that plus the tax liability,” and that takes your ten-dollar illegal up to about 16 dollars an hour. And then that vulnerability multiplied times 6 years…

FRANK GAFFNEY:

It sounds like a powerful incentive and heavens knows that is what’s needed. Congressman, I wanted to ask you about College Park and giving folks who are not citizens in fact including illegal aliens the vote and the implications of that but we will have to leave it at that for the moment. I know you have to go, we appreciate your time so much Sir and your great service to our country in the U.S. Congress. Congressman Steve King of Iowa, I know you’ll keep it up and I hope you come back to us again very soon.