House takes on immigration reform with STEM Act

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>>> science, technology, engineering and mathematics would provide visas to 55 immigrants annual tloi receive degrees in those fields and use what they learned and a apply that to american jobs . eric cantor praised the bill's package.

>> we have seen not only american students, but many, many foreign nationals have come to this country to be educated at our colleges and universities . specifically in the s.t.e.m. areas in the graduate education programs. the bill that we passed will allow these individuals to have a green card if they get a diploma.

>> democrats in the white house oppose the bill. it's likely doa in the senate.

>> if you support this bill, you're saying that one group of immigrants is better than another. we take away visas and the only means of legal immigration from 50,000 people who may not have ph.d.s or master's degrees. talk about picking winners and losers.

>> joining us now is the congressman who introduced the bill. it seems to solve a couple of problems at once. it keeps highly skilled tech work workers here in the country. it makes it easier for them to keep their families here. it's not comprehensive immigration reform , but it seems like a step in the right direction. yet of course the democrats don't approve. why not do you think?

>> well, because they don't want to really solve the immigration problem . if you understand what's happened over the last few year, democrats love to use this tool to talk about immigration , attack republicans on immigration . but anytime we try to do anything positive on immigration over the last two years and even before under the bush administration , they vote for amendments and they do things that actually kills any hopes of immigration reform . i think it's time that we actually took a positive step. i realize this is not everything we have to do on immigration , but it's a really positive first step for us to fix this broken system. i was an immigration lawyer for 15 years. i realize there's a lot of things we have to fix in the immigration system. but this is one of the easiest things to fix and i think we should do it thousand.

>> i would push back a little bit defense your characterization of the democrats on this issue, but that's for another time. what i want to talk about is the importance for your party to do something to reverse the thumping that you got in 2012 among latinos and this concept that the latinos may soon become attached to the democratic party the way blacks have become.

>> and i agree with you. i think if we don't reach out to the what tee know community to the african-american community, to the asian american community, we're going to have a very difficult time winning national elections. but we shouldn't change our policies. what we need to change is the way that we deal with some of these issues. immigration should be a conservative position. there's actually a conservative solution to all the immigration problems that vex us right now. i think the hispanic community won't vote republican because we do something on immigration . but they're going to start listening to the republicans if we actually fix this problem.