N. Fort Myers, Florida- With only two weeks left before the August 30th primary election takes place, we caught up to former Ambassador Francis Rooney, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress in Florida’s 13th congressional district, and asked him about the issue of illegal immigration.
Because building the “Trump wall” across the southern U.S. border is very popular among Americans, we decided to ask Rooney if he supported the construction of that wall.Rooney responded, “Yeah, I do,” but emphasized the need to address the problem of overstayed visas by those entering the U.S. legally.
“Half the people that are here illegally, came here legally on a visa, and it frustrates me that everyone is talking about “the wall,” talking about the land border that needs to be secure by technology as well as walls, but we have a massive hemorrhage with these visas that we need to fix.”- Francis Rooney
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When asked if he supported a bail bonds system that could serve as a deterrent for those planning on overstaying their visas, Rooney stated that he would “study” the measure, and thought that it “may be a good idea.”
How would a bail bonds system work?I am going to study that. That may be a good idea.
It’s simple. During the visa application process, a bond is paid along with any other fees associated with the visa. If a visa is overstayed, a bondsman is then appointed to ensure that that immigrant meets the conditions of the visa, or face being apprehended and jailed for breaking U.S. Immigration law.
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We then asked Rooney about his past support for the disastrous “Gang of 8” Senate immigration reform bill co-sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio in 2013, Rooney said that something needed to be done to fix the problem of illegal immigration, and that he believes that bill may have failed because of “too much politics.”
“I never considered anything amnesty. I talked about coming up with something that brings those people out of the shadows, whether its a national sign up day…we have got to find out who is here. This is a very insecure situation, and that’s why I was calling for somebody to get together in the Congress and figure out a plan that secures the border, makes the American people believe for once and for all that the border is secure so that we can figure out who all these people are here, and what to do with them.”
Rooney is running in a contested primary race against Sanibel City Councilman Chauncey Goss, who has been labeling Rooney as someone who favors amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Goss’s most recent campaign Facebook post states, “Francis Rooney was writing PRO-Amnesty op-eds. Not surprisingly, that didn’t poll test very well in SWFL, so now he’s spending MILLIONS of dollars trying to redefine himself.Here is the picture that Goss includes in his post.
There hasn’t been any independent public opinion polling conducted in this race, so it is very hard to gauge who is actually in the best position to win this primary race.
Both camps will tell you that they feel good about their chances of winning, and that they are receiving district-wide support for their candidacy.
