Iowa Republican Steve King is slated to become the chairman of the US House subcommittee that oversees all immigration legislation.

    King, who is well known for his staunch anti-immigrant stances and inflammatory remarks, has said he opposes the bi-partisan Dream Act. Calling it a form of “amnesty,” he vows to use his position to block any movement on the bill which would legalize the status of students who were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were young.

    The new chair has indicated a willingness to move on some bipartisan approach to immigration reform, saying, “I’m for moving on some immigration proposals and first thing we need to do is hold some hearings and build a broad knowledge base and take a look at the big picture and where the resources and assets are being placed and get them arranged in such a way that there can be a balance and they can be effective.”

    Of the newly elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives, King says, “The cavalry is over the hill. The last two or three weeks they’ve been charging down the hill and they’ve arrived now. And we really need them.”

    Earlier this year, as reported in La Plaza, the Iowa rep. gained some national attention for comments he made indicating that one can identify undocumented immigrants by such things as their “type of grooming” and by using a “sixth sense.”

    A supporter of Arizona’s controversial SB 1070, the congressman also has justified the use of racial profiling by law enforcement saying, “profiling has always been an important component of legitimate law enforcement. If you can’t profile someone, you can’t use those common sense indicators that are before your very eyes.”

    Lauded by anti-immigrant extremists, King has called the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses “separatist groups” and prior to the 2008 election, declared terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Barack Obama was elected president.

    King assumes the chairmanship when the new Congress begins in January.

Reprinted from Latinovations newsletter La Plaza: www.latinovations.com