Rand Paul to Discuss ‘Need for Immigration Reform’

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) voted against the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, but on Wednesday he plans to “discuss the need for immigration reform.”

Mr. Paul will join former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy’s monthly series on immigration reform hosted by Grover Norquist.

Mr. Paul, who is openly considering mounting a 2016 presidential campaign, opposed the Senate bill and the prospect of “amnesty.” Mr. Bloomberg is, of course, one of the leading proponents of immigration reform, which the Partnership for a New American Economy aims to promote.

“He’s just going to talk generally about his ideas that he pushed in the Senate bill and some of the problems with the Senate bill and why it made so difficult to pass,” said Mr. Paul’s spokesman, Brian Darling. “There’s not going to be anything different in his message tomorrow that he hasn’t said already a million times.”

That message has been one in stark opposition to the Senate’s comprehensive reform bill – and still left Mr. Paul open to some kind of agreement.

“I do not support amnesty,” Mr. Paul’s Senate website states. “Immigrants should meet the current requirements, which should be enforced and updated. I realize that subsidizing something creates more of it, and do not think the taxpayer should be forced to pay for welfare, medical care and other expenses for illegal immigrants.”

Yet he has at times sounded optimistic tones about immigration reform. In April Mr. Paul told Harvard students reform could pass in 2014 if Democrats compromised.

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