Ohio Senator-elect lays out plans as he prepares to head to Washington

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- In a little more than a month, new members of Congress will be sworn in, including a new Senator from Ohio. 

Senator-elect Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) is making the rounds across Ohio to talk about what he wants to accomplish during his six-year term.

The first thing Moreno said he is looking forward to is approving President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees to his cabinet, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense.  

“President Trump ran for president, he got 312 electoral votes, he won the popular vote,” Moreno said. “He won all seven swing states by a decent margin. He's got a mandate for the American public to actually serve. He has the ability to choose the people that he thinks will serve him best and I look forward to helping him confirm every single one of his nominees.”    

Moreno said he expects to do that alongside Vice-president-elect Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) during the first few weeks of January.    

“I get sworn in Jan. 3, I become the junior Senator,” Moreno said. “JD becomes a senior Senator. JD will serve for a period of time. Our plan is that, during that period of time, between the 3rd and 20th, while Joe Biden is still president, is to get as many of these nominees through the committee process as possible.” 

Moreno said not only is he excited about Trump’s nominees but also about new departments, like the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that will be led by Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk.

“So much opportunity, so much government waste,” Moreno said. “There is opportunity layered upon opportunity. It's not about cutting services or doing less. It's just doing it so much more efficiently.”    

Aside from the work in the early weeks of his term, he is looking to the future. Moreno said he thinks he will have a unique voice in the automotive industry, as a businessman and car salesman, and also hopes to be a voice on immigration as part of the Homeland Security Committee. 

“Especially around the topic of deportation, the topic of illegal entrants, the topic of what do we deal with on drug cartels, topic of South American policy,” Moreno said.    

Moreno said his plans for immigration policies include mass deportation, but “sequenced” the right way.    

“If it's feasible to get 13 million people into the country, it's feasible to get 13 million people out of the country,” he said.    

He said that sequence starts by deporting criminals or charging the origin country of that person four or five times the amount it costs the U.S. to keep them in our prison system.

“We're not going to house foreign nationals in our jails,” he said. “It's stupid. That's our dollars doing it, making that happen. So, we get rid of the criminals.”    

Moreno, himself an immigrant, said he is open to giving some people the choice of “self-deportation,” and then giving them something in return, like priority to return to the United States, but he said that system will still be thorough.      

“You got to learn the language,” he said. “You got to assimilate. You can't take government benefits. You've got to be added to our economy and you can't lower our wages. You hit those criteria, I think we're going to have a robust system, secure borders, zero tolerance for illegal immigration.”    

Moreno said while setting immigration policy is up to the federal government, the states can also play a role. 

“What the states can do, and should do, is require E-Verify,” he said. “Where what I did in my company, if you come to work for me, we verify that you're an American citizen.”

There is an E-Verify bill that passed the Ohio House with bipartisan support. It now awaits a vote in the Ohio Senate.   

Moreno said the federal government does have to work to make E-Verify systems easier for the states, too.    

“One of the things we're going to do, hopefully, if I end up being on the Homeland Security Committee, is make sure that USCIS, which is a database of American citizens, is easier for states to access so that we can verify your citizenship status,” he said. “Currently, that system doesn't talk to state systems very well.”    

Moreno reiterated his position, which differs from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s stance, that the removal of Haitian migrants from Ohio communities will not negatively impact the economy. 

“The companies who are employing them need to make plans, as they should have when they hired them in the first place, knowing that their [Temporary Protective Status] is only until February of ‘26,” Moreno said. “It absolutely doesn't crush the economy. What it does do is it provides opportunities for the Ohioans that aren't employed today.” 

As far as the economy goes, when reporters asked him about Trump’s plans to impose widespread tariffs, he said that does not concern him. 

“We're going to lower prices,” Moreno said. “This election was about open borders and high prices. We're going to complete both of those promises.” 

Abortion was another big topic during the election, but Moreno said nothing is going to happen in that area. 

“It’s a false flag,” he said. “There’s nothing that’s going to happen at the federal level with abortion. It was a lie. What we are going to do is change hearts and minds. We're going to make adoption less expensive. We are going to make equal access for women to have contraception, healthcare. We're going to make certain that we empower young women and I think all of those things are things we can agree on. I think we're going to fund pregnancy centers at scale.”    

Moreno’s term begins officially on Jan. 3, 2025.