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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Monday became irate and yelled at Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) during a Senate hearing at the suggestion that he had used last week's Boston Marathon bombing to try and delay immigration reform.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Friday, Grassley had said that knowing the immigration status of the Boston bombers would "help shed light on the weaknesses of our system."

"How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?" he asked.

In his opening remarks on Monday, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said that he was troubled that some people would use the tragedy in Boston to slow down immigration reform.

"Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous act of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hardworking people," Leahy remarked. "A nation as strong as ours can welcome the oppressed and persecuted without making compromise on our security. We are capable of vigilance in pursuit of these values."

Grassley made it clear that he had taken Leahy's opening statement personally.

"If you want to want to avoid partisanship, I would say, let's be very deliberate," the Iowa Republican said. "And I want you to take note of the fact that when you proposed gun legislation, I didn't accuse you of using the Norsetown [sic] killings as an excuse."

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Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) on Wednesday connected the Monday bombings in Boston to the immigration debate and warned that "radical Islamists" were "being trained to come in and act like Hispanics."

During an interview on C-SPAN, host Greta Wodele Brawner asked the Texas Republican about a bipartisan "Gang of Eight" proposal in the Senate that would increase funding for border security by $5.5 billion over ten years and establish a 13-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

"What I first thought after my prayers went for the victims and the families in Boston is, 'My gosh, we've seen this in Israel,'" Gohmert recalled. "And after Israel had to suffer the slings and arrows and the deaths and the maimings... Finally the Israeli people said, 'You know what? Enough.' They built, over 70 percent of it is just a fence, and the rest is a wall, prevents snipers from knocking off their kids. And they finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them."

"And I'm concerned we need to do that as well," he insited.

Pressing Gohmert, the C-SPAN host noted that Rep. Steve King (-R-IA) had speculated that the Boston bombings were perpetrated by a "foreign national" and that Congress should proceed with caution on immigration reform.

"We know that al Qaeda has camps with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border," Gohmert agreed. "We know that people are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics when they're radical Islamists. We know these things are happening, and it's just insane to not protect ourselves and make sure that people come in -- as most people do, they want the freedoms we have."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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As McCain openly admitted during his interview on This Week, there's nothing like losing huge segments of the population in a national election to finally get politicians to moderate their views and as Think Progress pointed out, that includes his own: McCain: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Include Path To Citizenship:

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) confirmed on Sunday morning that he that he and a bipartisan group of senators will roll out a comprehensive immigration reform effort in Congress. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain, who has previously fluctuated on his support of a full path to citizenship, stressed that any reform bill must include such a measure, and that the effort must be done in one piece of all-encompassing legislation.

His support for the bill is a pivot from earlier comments that citizenship for undocumented immigrants would be “amnesty.” But McCain defended his shift by pointing out how citizenship for Latinos would benefit the Republican party, and by questioning what would otherwise happen to those undocumented people “living in the shadows”: [...]

McCain said that Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and others will be working on the legislation. The exact outline of what will be in the bill is unclear, but McCain said the Senators will announce its key “principals” this week.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's office is walking back comments from the Republican governor, that it was "fine and dandy" to work on comprehensive immigration reform before the border was secured.

In an interview with KPNX that aired on Sunday, host Brahm Resnik told Brewer that both House Speaker John Boehner and Fox News host Sean Hannity had called for comprehensive immigration reform after Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.

"We all know that we need to resolve this huge issue that's facing the United States," Brewer agreed. "And if I believe that if we could get our border secured -- and I've said this all along -- secure our border and then we can deal with all these other issues."

"But here's the thing," Resnik pointed out. "With John Boehner and Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and [Maricopa County Attorney] Bill Montgomery -- what he said in particular was, 'You know what? We can do both at once. We can secure the border and do comprehensive immigration reform.' Is that something you're on with? Because it sounds like you are just a secure-the-border-first person."

"What ever works," Brewer replied. "If we can do both at the same time, I'm fine and dandy with that. But we cannot resolve these kinds of issues today and then have the problems still existing."

"So, again, these national Republicans and even here in the county are ready to move on, to move forward with immigration and, I would assume, at the same time pursue a secure border," Resnik pressed. "Are you willing to do that, yes or no?"

"Yes," Brewer insisted. "Of course, I think everybody is on board."

On Sunday, KPNX reported that Brewer's office had contacted him after the interview was recorded on Friday to walk back her support for comprehensive immigration reform in concert with securing the border.

"Spokesman Matt Benson said the governor still believes in securing the border first," Resnik wrote. "He added that she was willing to 'come to the table' to deal with all immigration issues. Later Friday, the governor's office issued a statement reaffirming her 'secure the border first' stance."

During her interview with Resnik, Brewer also said that no blame could be placed on the Republican Party for losing the Hispanic vote.

"No," she said. "President Obama, in the last four years, they've had four years to get our borders secured and they refused to do it, but yet we know they can. We know that they can secure the borders. Why won't they secure the border? Because they wanted that out there because they knew that they could turn it into an issue of all about racism."

"I think the Democrats have been more responsible because they keep want to make this a race issue. The keep using the race card, that we are racists and we are bigots because we want our borders secured because we are the recipient of a lot of the crime that happens and the costs that it takes."

"So SB 1070 and Sheriff Joe Arpaio's divisiveness have nothing to do with the national Republicans' problem with Latinos?" Resnik wondered.

"Senate Bill 1070 simply mirrors federal law," Brewer opined. "We believe in the rule of law and that's why we're the country that we are."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

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Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod on Sunday explained that President Barack Obama had not accomplished comprehensive immigration reform because the tea party had driven mainstream Republicans so far to the right.

"I think a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better -- but they're in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right," Axelrod told CNN's Candy Crowley.

"I was in the room when he called together Republicans and Democrats who had been for immigration reform in the past," the top aide recalled. "President Bush, to his credit, had pushed for immigration reform. In the Senate, 11 members supported it. Those members and members who have been supportive in the past were there along with Democrats, and the president said, 'I will work with you to get this done.' Not one of those Republicans was willing to stand up and work with him to pass the bill."

"We tried to pass the DREAM Act through the Congress. It was blocked by the Republican legislature," he added.

"The nature of Washington is not monolithic opposition to everything the chief executive wants to do as a political strategy, and that is what happened here. ... To say because you have an implacable group of Republicans in the Congress, who simply aren't going to let that move, that the president hasn't kept his promise is a little bit disingenuous."

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll found that Obama had an enormous lead over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney among Hispanics, 69 percent to 22 percent.

Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on Sunday dismissed the idea that Romney needed a specific strategy to win over Latino voters.

(h/t: The Hill)