Hardy: Some immigration bill will pass Congress

Give Rep. Cresent Hardy credit for one thing: He didn’t back away from his controversial positions on some of the issues despite facing a somewhat hostile crowd at the monthly Hispanics in Politics breakfast meeting Wednesday.

But on the most controversial issue of interest to the group — immigration reform — the Mesquite Republican didn’t offer many of his own views, although he did predict some bill would emerge from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

“There’s no easy solution to immigration,” Hardy said, calling for a “smart, compassionate, thoughtful process.” But what would that process entail? And what would a final bill look like? And would Hardy, like Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, favor a bill that offers immigrants a pathway to citizenship? Hardy left those questions unanswered.

Back in 2014, Hardy told the Review-Journal’s editorial board that he thought children brought here illegally by their parents should get a chance to stay in the country and eventually become citizens, although those parents should only be allowed to achieve “legal status,” and not necessarily citizenship. Curiously, however, he also said in that interview he would have voted against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers young people a reprieve from deportation.

Hardy noted on Wednesday that President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration are temporary, and could be reversed at the whim of a future president. “They cause uncertainty,” Hardy said of the president’s orders.

In response to a question from an audience member, however, Hardy acknowledged that the Republican Party is divided on the issue of immigration reform, which accounts for the fact that the House has failed to take up even GOP-generated legislation to address the issue. He predicted that attempts at legislation would begin with border security, but warned that the push to resolve the problem can’t stop there.

“If we don’t solve it, we’ll pay for it,” Hardy said.

But critics say the border-security-first approach is a chimera, since standards for what constitutes a fully secured border can shift. In the meantime, the country must deal with a sizable population of immigrants already here with murky, semi-legal status. A bipartisan bill passed by the Senate in 2014 to address the matter has been ignored in the House.

On other issues, Hardy had little trouble standing up for his views opposing the Affordable Care Act and the concept of the minimum wage, although it appeared many in the audience supported both. He said minimum wages have only come to the fore because of the lack of good jobs, and that once the economy started moving again, more people would find employment at higher wages.

Plus, he said, imposing minimum wages would increase mechanization of jobs, which would lead to more unemployment. (Don’t laugh: McDonald’s is experimenting with kiosks that take orders in lieu of humans. And there are driverless trucks now, too.)

Hardy, who has declared his support for totally repealing Obama’s health-care reform, also repeated his support for that idea.

And Hardy endorsed the idea of placing more federally owned public lands in the hands of the state of Nevada. He scoffed at the notion of federal protection of public land, and even hinted that vandalism on public lands is being perpetrated by people who support designating those areas as protected wilderness.

Oh, and on his most recent push to draw attention to Yucca Mountain, Hardy said again he’s neither for nor against the proposed nuclear waste repository, but merely wants to “have a conversation” about it. (That conversation is opposed by most other members of Nevada’s congressional delegation.) He said that once people across the country realize that waste will have to be trucked through their communities, Nevada might pick up more opposition from those living on transport routes.

Hardy defeated Rep. Steven Horsford in 2014 in an unexpected victory, and is being targeted by Democrats in 2016 as a vulnerable incumbent. Thus far, state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, and former Assemblywoman Lucy Flores have declared their intent to seek the seat, but others may enter the race as well, including former Assembly Speaker John Oceguera or state Sens. Kelvin Atkinson, D-Las Vegas or Pat Spearman, D-North Las Vegas.