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Rubio Works on Selling Conservative Skeptics on 'Secret' Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: Andrew Harnik

Immigration draft lays out contentious points plan to reward, select immigrants

By Stephen Dinan and David Eldridge. The immigration reform bill that senators are writing in secret would move U.S. policy to a points-based system that would reward immigrants who are taking care of disabled parents at the same level as those who have earned master’s degrees in high-tech fields, according to a draft of the legislation reviewed by The Washington Times.

The eight senators writing the bill plan to announce provisions this week, ahead of a major hearing in the SenateJudiciary Committee on Wednesday, but some details already have been leaked. Among them is the points system to select immigrants.

Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said his plan would make illegal immigrants wait years to gain citizenship. Republican leaders are counting on Mr. Rubio to sell the plan to skeptical conservatives.

“This is not amnesty. Amnesty is the forgiveness of something,” Mr. Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re going to create an alternative that says, ‘OK, you want to stay here, you’ll have to wait more than 10 years, you’ll have to pay this fine, you’ll have to pay your registration fee, you’ll have to be gainfully employed, you won’t qualify for any federal benefits, and then after all of that you don’t get to apply for anything until the enforcement mechanisms are in place.’”

Mr. Rubio made the rounds of all of the major Sunday political talk shows to pitch the legislation. His appearances marked what one immigration rights advocate called “opening day” for what is expected to be a bruising fight on Capitol Hill. Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio: Illegal immigrants won’t get welfare

By Joel Gehrke. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that the gang of eight’s immigration proposal will not allow legalized immigrants to receive federal benefits such as welfare or the Obamacare coverage.

“[T]hey don’t qualify for any federal benefits,” Rubio said on Fox News Sunday of the current illegal immigrants slated for legalization under the proposal he helped write. “This is an important point. No federal benefits, no food stamps, no welfare, no ObamaCare. They have to prove they’re gainfully employed. They have to be able to support themselves, so they’ll never become a public charge.”

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee had suggested that the proposal would add trillions in federal spending because “there is nothing in the framework to apply federal public charge law to those in the country illegally before they are granted legal status.” The committee staff also recalled that Immigrations and Custom Enforcement union president Chris Crane said that officers “are not permitted to enforce that statute.” Read more from this story HERE.

1,500 Page Immigration Bill to Drop One Day Before Only Hearing?!

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Photo Credit: AP

According to an ABC News report, senators from the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” pushing immigration reform are expected to drop their bill, estimated at around 1,500 pages, on Tuesday, mere hours before the only scheduled Senate hearing on the topic.

“A bipartisan group of senators plans to introduce its long-awaited immigration bill on Tuesday, Senate sources confirmed to ABC News,” Jim Avila and Jordan Fabian wrote on Friday. “Four Democrats and four Republicans, known as the ‘Gang of Eight,’ wrapped up months of hard-fought negotiations this week and will put forth a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.”

If the Senators actually do wait until Tuesday to roll out their lengthy proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system, that will give members of the Senate Judiciary Committee less than a full day to read it before the only Senate hearing on the topic. Despite ardent pleas from Senate conservatives, including ranking Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy, has only agreed to one hearing on the legislation.

Leahy scheduled that single hearing for Wednesday at 2:30 PM, and the hearing’s sole scheduled witness is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Napolitano would have less than a full day to read the bill she is scheduled to testify about.

“Gang of Eight” member Marco Rubio (R-FL) has said he supports multiple hearings and an open and transparent immigration reform process, but his actions do not necessarily back his words. He has not pushed Leahy to force multiple hearings; he appears content with the single hearing Leahy has scheduled on the issue and now appears to be backing down from his demand for multiple hearings.

Read more from this story HERE.

Coulter Hammers Norquist Over Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

On CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report” on Friday night, conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter faced off against founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist over the issue of immigration reform.

Norquist supported the reported outline of the proposal that is being negotiated in secret by a group of senators dubbed the “Gang of Eight.” Norquist said the these efforts will bring substantial benefits for Americans…

Coulter, author of “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama,” said the current bill shouldn’t be defined as pro- or anti-immigration, but instead shoudl be judged on the merits of the proposal.

“It isn’t pro-immigration or anti-immigration — it’s changing the current immigration policy,” Coulter said. “I think we ought to be trying to get immigrants who are better than us, not worse than us. And 85 percent of legal immigrants come from the Third World since [former Sen.] Teddy Kennedy changed immigration law in this country. Sixty-five percent of them need some sort of government assistance. I mean, when I hear that — you know, ‘Don’t worry, immigrants are only on welfare 15 percent higher than native Americans,’ it shouldn’t be any immigrants.”

“We ought to be getting — we can’t get the surgeons, the businessmen, the people who would be competing with everybody who is talking about immigration — it is the servant class that is coming in who taxpayers need to support,” she added. “And of course, the business community has always been for immigration. Some elements of the evangelicals always have, but the point is: Is it a good policy or bad policy? It is bad for America. It is good for people who want cheap labor, while the rest of us subsidize cheap labor.”

Watch video here:

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Conservative House GOP Members Come out Swinging on Immigration Reform

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A group of Republican House members led by Iowa Rep. Steve King spoke forcefully in opposition to a mass legalization before first solving the problem of illegal immigration at an event with reporters Thursday.

“We held our powder dry but decided to come forward now because we are seeing the inertia [of immigration reform] and we are concerned about having this wash over us and not have the opportunity for constitutional conservatives in this country and in this Congress to have their voice heard,” King explained.

Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta stressed that the conversation should be about strengthening the borders, not a pathway to citizenship.

“As this issue comes to the forefront here it is interesting that there is any talk at all about a pathway to citizenship. As soon as I hear that I think political — we would not be talking about any type of pathway to citizenship if we were seriously about illegal immigration,” he said, referencing President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty.

“We’re offering amnesty at a time when we know our borders aren’t secure. And just today, as I said, you have now encouraged people to come here illegally. We’ve given a green light to people all over the world to come to the United States and steal jobs away from the American people when 22 million Americans are out of work,” he added. “When the legal immigrants who are starting here are now going to have to compete for jobs with millions more.”

Read more from this story HERE.

US Civil Rights Commission Members: Amnesty Will 'Disproportionately Harm' Black Community

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Three members of the United States Commission on Civil Rights wrote on Thursday to Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) to express their belief that amnesty or legalization of some 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. will hurt the black community.

“In light of recent debates on comprehensive immigration reform, we are writing to address a rarely-discussed effect of granting legal status or effective amnesty to illegal immigrants,” the three Civil Rights Commission members wrote. “Such grant of legal status will likely disproportionately harm lower-skilled African-Americans by making it more difficult for them to obtain employment and depressing their wages when they do obtain employment.”

“The increased employment difficulties will likely have negative consequences that extend far beyond economics,” the authors warn.

The Commission members cite a 2008 briefing their body held on this topic which found illegal immigration “has a disparate impact on African-American men because these men are disproportionately represented in the low-skilled labor force.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Gun Control and Immigration Deals in the Works: Is the GOP Selling Us Out Again?

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

For the first time in a while, members of the two parties — at least some of them — appear to be talking about getting things done, even without the deadline of a manufactured crisis looming.

With Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) reaching a deal to expand background checks on firearms purchases, the way appears to have been cleared for the Senate to start debate on gun-control legislation. Although their provision is not as far-reaching as what President Obama proposed after the Newtown massacre in December, he praised it as “common sense.”

Another bipartisan deal also is in the offing, as a group of eight senators nears final agreement on a plan that would give illegal immigrants a path to legal status and, potentially, citizenship.

And Wednesday night, Obama continued his outreach to Senate Republicans, dining with a dozen of them to discuss the nation’s fiscal future and the budget he put forward earlier in the day. It was the second such dinner in a matter of weeks.

“What we did, we did right,” said Manchin in an interview Wednesday, referring to his background-check deal. “And you have to look at that in the toxic atmosphere that we’re in, that I’ve experienced for 2 1 / 2 years. Oh Lordy, if we’re able to get this, I think, good piece of legislation through, it’ll be a major accomplishment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Schumer Sees ‘Gang of Eight’ Deal this Week on Immigration

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A raucous public debate over the nation’s flawed immigration system is set to begin in earnest this week as senators finalize a bipartisan bill to secure the border, allow tens of thousands of foreign workers into the country and grant eventual citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.

Negotiators already are cautioning of struggles ahead for an issue that’s defied resolution for years. An immigration deal came close on the Senate floor in 2007 but collapsed amid interest group bickering and an angry public backlash.

“There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal because everybody didn’t get what they wanted,” Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, who is a leader of the eight senators negotiating the legislation, said Sunday. “There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue.”

“There’s a long road,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, appearing alongside Mr. McCain on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.” ”There are people on both sides who are against this bill, and they will be able to shoot at it.”

Mr. Schumer, Mr. McCain and their “Gang of Eight” already missed a self-imposed deadline to have their bill ready in March, but Mr. Schumer said he hopes that this week it will happen.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Senator Says Obama Is Faking Stance on Immigration Reform, Trying to Set Up GOP in 2014

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

Texas Freshman Senator, Ted Cruz, was on the Sean Hannity radio show today talking about immigration reform efforts being pushed in the US Senate by Harry Reid and President Obama.

According to Cruz, both Reid and Obama are purposely pushing reforms designed to lose in the House of Representatives. This loss then can be used as a political sledgehammer to beat up the Republicans with in the 2014 and 2016 elections.

Two of the critical issues that are apparently a red line for many members of both the House and Senate are secure borders and pathways to citizenship.

A key issue for Senators trying to find a way to craft immigration reform is to make sure our borders are secure first, before any other issues of immigration are addressed. But it seems President Obama, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer think our borders are secure enough and want to force an immigration package through that does not really address a verifiable secure borders provision. To many politicians that will make anything coming out of the Senate, DOA for immigration reform when it reaches the House of Representatives.

The hypocrite Senator Schumer, couldn’t have been caught at a more inopportune moment when he and Senator McCain recently stood in front of the border fence in Arizona for photo ops. Just when the pictures were being taken, an alien from Mexico climbed over the fence and entered the US illegally. This could make Schumer the poster child for non secure borders.

The latest polls also show Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of having secure borders before any immigration reform is put in place.

Cruz was adamant the type of immigration reform with path to citizenship Reid and Obama were pushing, would be unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who play by the rules. Cruz said that would be a slap in the face to legal immigrants and a tacit wink that it is OK to disrespect the nations laws.

Cruz went on to say if President Obama was serious about immigration reform, he would take pathway to citizenship out of the proposed immigration reform, then reform could easily pass…Perhaps a pathway to work permits

According to Cruz even a pathway to a Green Card would be unfair since that could lead to citizenship in five years and it would be considered a reward for illegal behavior.

Many Americans are also disturbed about the reported number of illegal immigrants in this country. That number was reported to be up to 20 million towards the end of 2012. But as soon as the Obama administration started proposing immigration reform, the number suddenly shrank to only 11 million. What are we to believe?

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Selling Out the Nation: Labor, Business Reach Immigration Deal

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Senate negotiators cleared the last major hurdle to reaching a bipartisan immigration reform deal Saturday as labor and business groups signed off on a visa program for future low-skilled workers, according to sources familiar with the talks.

The agreement marks a major breakthrough and significantly improves the odds of passing a larger immigration bill because it brings two powerful Washington interests on board on an issue that contributed to the defeat of past reform efforts. The visa program, which allows businesses to bring in up to 200,000 low-skilled workers annually depending on economic conditions, would be among the most controversial elements of the overhaul package. But the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are expected to play a key role in helping blunt attacks by conservatives activists and liberals.

“This issue has always been the dealbreaker on immigration reform, but not this time,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leader of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, said in a statement Saturday night.

The Gang of Eight remains in negotiations on the broader bill. The senators have reached tentative agreement on many of the major issues, including the path to citizenship and border security, but they have yet to review the legislative language and caution that they don’t have a deal until they agree on everything.

The reform bill is so complex that none of the senators is willing to say they have an agreement until they can look at it on paper. The group is preparing to spend the next week finalizing the legislation, with an announcement likely to come when they return from the Easter recess on April 8 — although it will mark the start of a long and difficult road to passage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio Hires Democrat Immigration Lawyer Who Imports Workers For Companies

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Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s top lawyer in the closed-door effort to draft a new immigration bill is a Democratic donor who earns his living by bringing foreign workers into the country on behalf of corporations and universities.

The lawyer, Enrique Gonzalez, is a partner at the nation’s largest immigration firm, whose future depends on the outcome of Gonzalez’s closed-door work.

Rubio hired Gonzalez in January, when he was a partner at the Coral Gables, Fla., office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy.

Gonzales’ LinkedIn profile describes his “skills & expertise” as “immigration law, H-1B, naturalization, citizenship appeals … [and] international law visas.”

Read more from this story HERE.