Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, former head of the Republican National Committee, now a political fixer and influential voice in GOP circles, says he first became seriously interested in immigration policy after Hurricane Katrina.

Thousands of homes in Mississippi were destroyed, “down to the slab,” Barbour said at a conference on immigration hosted by National Journal in Washington on Thursday. Construction workers were overwhelmed; many were homeless themselves. And then, almost out of nowhere, came help.