ITHACA, NY (WSKG) - Over the weekend, Republican congressman Tom Reed hosted a series of three town halls around his Southern Tier district. They came just after the partial federal shutdown ended.
The shutdown and immigration were the main topics of the first meeting in Veteran, New York. At one point, an audience member said, “people seem to think it’s a right to immigrate here illegally.”
But, Suzanne Lipari of Hector, said people need to be more precise about the words they used.
"Asylum seekers are legal." Lipari said. "It is legal to seek asylum and until your asylum claim is rejected everything about you is legal. How you got in the country doesn’t matter."
The other town halls were in the towns of Fayette in Seneca County and Potter in Yates County.