Gov. Matt Meyer is on a bipartisan taskforce of governors planning to develop immigration policies it can bring to Washington.
Meyer is joined on the taskforce by Republican governors Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Spencer Cox of Utah, along with fellow Democrat Wes Moore of Maryland.
Last week on Ask Governor Meyer, he said, “the immigration discussion in our country today must start with dignity and opportunity.”
Meyer said there are points the group doesn’t agree on. But during a Bloomberg interview, none of the four governors believed recent DHS and ICE actions were effective. And all four agreed that immigration policy in the country is broken.
“We're doing this not necessarily just out of the goodness of our hearts,” Meyer told Bloomberg. “We're here because it's our job. Because with what we're seeing in workforce, what we're seeing in public safety, we feel like there is an imperative to find a way to come together...and come up with policies to suggest to Washington to really move the country forward and beyond where we've been.”
States have few avenues to affect policy since Congress is charged with enacting immigration laws, he said.
Broad immigration reforms to increase the number of people the US admits haven’t been updated since the 1990s.
Meyer thinks states can give input on policy based on workforce needs, and the feedback would make the US system more efficient.He wantstechnology used,“ so that people can get visas in days or weeks and not years.”
Delaware’s legislature passed a slate of bills related to immigration enforcement this session– including limitations on law enforcement detaining someone only for immigration violations.
Meyer said his signature on those measures is coming next month.
