Delegates to the state Republican convention unleashed a rare chorus of boos and hisses at U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss on Saturday, as he spoke up for a bipartisan immigration reform package unveiled in Washington this week.
Chambliss had just finished emphasizing his devotion to border security provisions contained in the measure, and brought up agriculture’s need for temporary, foreign workers.
“We’ve got to face the fact that we’ve got to create a new, truly temporary worker program” — the boos started here, but Chambliss plowed on — “for that segment of our economy that need temporary workers.
“If we don’t have a meaningful, workable program, we’ll simply be dependent on foreign imports for food products, the way we’re dependent on foreign imports for oil products,” Chambliss said, finishing his thought.
After the speech, Chambliss said he took the crowd’s reaction as a lack of popular understanding of the shape of the current immigration system.