Real estate tycoon Donald Trump is no fan of the GOP's efforts to work on immigration reform, and he has not been shy about letting his feelings known.
"They're going to make it possible for 11 million or 12 million illegal to become citizens," Trump said on Fox and Friends, referring to the GOP. "Every single one of those 12 million people will be voting against the Republicans."
Recent efforts by high-profile members of the Republican Party have been geared towards fixing the nation's immigration laws, with Republicans-who have largely opposed granting citizenship to illegal immigrants for years-being forced to reconsider their position after a record number of Latinos voted in favor of President Obama instead of GOP candidate Mitt Romney during the November election.
Romney's stance on adopting tougher immigration laws likely didn't help him among Latinos and minority voters, either.
However, Trump, who has previously suggested allowing in more immigrants from Europe, said that the borders are not secure enough for Republicans to be considering immigration reform.
"The border's not secure -- we don't have secure borders anywhere -- the borders are secure from Europe," Trump said. "I mean, the fact is if you want to come in from Europe and if you want to become a citizen and you're not here illegally and you go through the paperwork and the filing, you can't get in."
Border security has been a key element in the recent talks on getting an immigration reform bill done. Members of the bipartisan U.S. Senate panel working on the bill said on Sunday that they could have a deal on immigration ready to unveil to the public soon.
However, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that the announcement was premature and there were still several issues needed to be worked out.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been publicly asserted that the border is secure in recent months, but Homeland Security officials have told Congress in late March that they had not completed new measurements that can back the claims on stronger border security. Another official told the U.S. House of Representatives there was no progress to report on a wide measure of border conditions that Homeland Security had been working on since 2010.
Legislators, even members of the panel working on the bill, have warned the department that not providing a measure on how secure the border is could sabotage efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
"We need to have a measurement," Senator John McCain, R-Ariz. said at another hearing last month, as reported by The Fiscal Times. "We need to assure the American people that we have effective control of the border and we have made advances to achieve that. I need to have something to assure people they are not going to live in fear."
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