Rand Paul: Senate immigration bill 'has no chance in the House'

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) reiterated Republican demands for increased security on a border that immigration advocates have repeatedly pointed out has been militarized into being secure in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.

"We have much more security we would write into the substance of the bill," Paul said regarding conservative conditions for an immmigration reform bill. "But then what we have is, at the end of year one, an investigator general looks at border security. We look at census data to see how many illegal aliens are said to be in the country. We look at reports from governors and then we vote on whether the border is more secure or less at the end of the year, given all of this information."

Paul also called for 100 miles of border fencing to be built, though he did not specify in which sector of the border between the U.S. and Mexico it should be placed.

But, as immigrant rights groups have said, recent data indicates that not only is immigration to the U.S. from Mexico at a net-zero rate, but deportation is at an all-time high.

A survey released on June 11 by political research firm Latino Decisions also found that 81 percent of Latino voters also wanted to see immigration reform handled alongside security measures, rather than depending on conditions set by lawmakers.

Paul said his amendment to the current legislation proposed by the senatorial "Gang of 8" would call for a yearly congressional vote on border security, a feature Republican House members looked upon favorably.

"I know that they're on a completely different page than the bill in the Senate," Paul said. "The bill in the Senate has no chance in the House, but what I'm trying to do is offer up something that is the bridge between the gap between the Senate and the House."

"People don't trust Congress," host Sara Eisen responded to Paul, before alluding to a recent Gallup poll showing the approval rating for lawmakers at an all-time low of 10 percent. "If you look at Americans, they don't want to politicize this process."

"It is politicized because government's involved with it; your representatives are involved with it," Paul answered. "What I would say is that we need more to assure people that the border will be secure."

Paul explained that conservatives were unhappy that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 put off a promise to increase security along the border.

"The only way to make conservatives and the public at large more confident is to have more checks and balances in the bill," Paul said.

Watch Paul's critique of immigration reform, aired Tuesday on Bloomberg TV, below.