Free Republic

It began with the flicker of a flashlight, muffled voices and the gentle splash of paddles carrying softly across the stillness of the Rio Grande Valley. As the silhouette drew closer to the shore we could suddenly see the bow of a small boat and the faces of women and children peering back at us though the gloom. Moments later the raft reached the riverbank and the dozen or so occupants began clambering on to U.S. soil with dreams of starting a new life in Joe Biden's America. As they stumbled around in the darkness a young woman tripped and...

Amnesty for illegal immigrants is bad for American workers, according to a tweet from GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. “A proposal to gut immigration enforcement and give blanket amnesty? Rough ‘day one’ for American workers,” said the tweet. The failed Paris deal will hurt American families while China and Russia grow emissions. The Keystone cancellation will kill union jobs and hurt U.S. energy security. And a proposal to gut immigration enforcement and give blanket amnesty? Rough "day one" for American workers. — Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) January 21, 2021 The tweet is McConnell’s first mention of immigration on his Twitter account....

NATIONAL REVIEW SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 12:34 PM God Save Us from the Loud 'I'm Staying Home This Year' Conservatives By Jim Geraghty A few thoughts from the middle of the day . . . God save us from self-professed "conservatives" who will announce they'll stay home on Election Day as a demonstration of their power. Because as we all know, you become more influential in politics and government and public life by staying home and doing less. .... Does the "I'm staying home" crowd apply this to everything in life? "I don't like the way the company is run, so...

Senate Republicans are preparing an agenda for their first 100 days in power next year in case they win majority control of the upper chamber, The Hill reported. The agenda includes authorizing the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline, approving “fast-track” trade authority, rolling back new Environmental Protection Agency regulations and repealing Obamacare’s unpopular tax on medical devices. Republican senators insisted they were not “measuring the drapes” in anticipation of a wave election sweeping them into power after years in the minority. “We will have to be prepared if we are in a position to govern,” Sen. Bob Corker said. “You...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who said that illegal immigration is an "act of love" that should not "rile" up Americans, now believes most of the illegal immigrant children from Central America should be sent back. But he also called for Congress to use the border crisis to pass comprehensive amnesty legislation. -snip- But he also urged Congress to "demonstrate leadership" on the border crisis by passing amnesty legislation. "Congress should not use the present crisis as an excuse to defer comprehensive immigration reform," Bush said. Bush, who has pushed amnesty legislation while considering a 2016 presidential run, called for...

More Republicans are pushing for an immigration overhaul.House Republican leaders are mum on a timetable for advancing immigration overhaul legislation and have so far been noncommittal on moving on the issue before the end of the 113th Congress. But a group of mayors and business leaders from across the political spectrum is determined to prove that momentum is growing for a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws — even among conservatives. The coalition, Partnership for a New American Economy, on Wednesday held the first in a series of monthly conference calls moderated by Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist...

The Republican establishment's war against the Tea Party has come to Texas. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, "Some of Texas’ biggest business trade groups are moving to counter tea party and anti-government forces that have dominated recent Republican primaries." The Texas Future Business Alliance, described as a "mix of 10 major business groups, including the chemical industry, bankers, builders and contractors," is reportedly "sending out mailers and providing other support on behalf of GOP candidates" who favor more government spending and want to take on the Tea Party. . .Michael Quinn Sullivan, who is the president of...

Former George W. Bush strategist and presidential adviser Karl Rove visited Fayetteville on Wednesday to raise money for Thom Tillis, the state House speaker and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. The soiree was held at the home of Terry and Rosalind Hutchens and open to people donating $1,000 to $2,600. The event was closed to the press; neither Rove nor Tillis granted interviews before the fundraiser.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — Many Republicans, with eyes trained on the presidential election in 2016, have sorted through the wreckage of the 2012 elections to figure out how and why the GOP suffered such heavy losses, including the White House. But at the Republican Governors Association conference in Arizona on Wednesday, one theory dominated at an early panel discussion: That the X-factor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lacked might have been a more compassionate tone. "People have to know that you care about them," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, one of the governors believed to be weighing a presidential bid in...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is urging Republicans to keep a strict focus on the pocketbook concerns of voters in coming elections — and avoid social issues that have been the party’s Achilles’s heel in some recent campaigns. Walker, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, also told The Hill the GOP can shed its reputation as the “party of no” only if it offers creative alternatives to Democratic policies they oppose, like ObamaCare. “For us politically, it doesn’t make sense for us not to be focused on the fiscal and economic issues,” he said in a Monday interview. “The left...

Assuming a farm bill is passed by the end of the year, the next legislative priority for the dairy industry will be immigration reform. A top official at the National Milk Producers Federation is optimistic that reform will occur. “I believe that by 2014 we are going to have comprehensive immigration reform,” says Jamie Castaneda, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and trade policy at NMPF. “When they’re going to do it, I can’t tell you whether it will be the first six months (of 2014) or a lame-duck session” after the November congressional elections, Castaneda said.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) says he supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally as part of an overhaul of the nation's immigration system. "If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don't care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else," Walker said Tuesday during an interview with the Daily Herald Media Editorial Board of Wisconsin. "I want them here." Walker was then asked about the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally. The editorial board asked if he...

The recent elections underlined a growing tension in political money circles: Business people are increasingly fed up with the activist wing of the Republican Party. It's a trend that will have broad implications for next year's midterm elections and the presidential race in 2016, political experts say. [Snip] And there's more to come. Business interests appear to be rallying behind moderate Republicans Brian Ellis, David Trott and Mike Simpson against tea party-approved challengers Justin Amash, Kerry Bentivolio and Bryan Smith for House seats in 2014 (Ellis and Trott are running in Michigan and Simpson is in Idaho). [Snip] "If the...

The day after his triumph, Chris Christie returned to the place where it had been sweetest: Union City. Located just across the Hudson River from New York City, Union City is nearly entirely Hispanic, and reliably Democratic. This summer the city's Democratic mayor, Brian Stack, endorsed Christie, and by the end of the race, the burg became a beacon for reporters writing about Christie's Hispanic outreach. Christie closed his re-election race with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez in ... Union City. So on Tuesday, flanked by a Greek chorus of cheering schoolkids, Christie held a lengthy press conference about how...

Southern California Congressman Darrell Issa is rumored to be cooking up his own immigration reform proposal. It’s reportedly designed to find some middle ground in the contentious debate over providing legal status to the more than 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. -snip- The details of Issa’s plan for immigration reform are still scarce, and his office didn’t respond to numerous requests for an interview. But the plan would reportedly include a six-year period of temporary relief from deportation for undocumented immigrants. During that time, they would be expected to find a legal way to stay here or leave....

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States, he said in an interview Wednesday. Issa, an influential Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, described the legislation as a “come-from-the-shadows” effort that would allow the government to do a full accounting of those who are in the U.S. illegally. Immigrants in this new status would be able to travel to their native country while on this temporary visa, he said.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sat down with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on Sunday for a discussion about the Republican tactics which led to the government shutdown. Bush said that he sympathizes with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) desire to defund the Affordable Care Act, but advised hi m to exercise a “bit of self-restraint” when it comes to tactics. Bush began by taking aim at Cruz’s tactics. He observed that the GOP actually lost ground with the public over the course of the shutdown and ironically made significantly reforming the ACA that much harder. “Tactically it...

Immigration reform advocates plan an aggressive campaign to bring the issue back — and the White House has signaled it’s on board. Can Obama emerge from the fiscal crisis with enough momentum to win the immigration fight? As the fiscal fight roiling Washington nears its end, the White House is already signaling that it plans to use the political momentum it has gained during the shutdown fight to charge back into the immigration debate. And this time, Democratic pollsters and advocates say, they could actually win. The final chapter of the current crisis hasn’t been written yet, but Democrats in...

Once the fiscal crisis has been resolved, President Barack Obama is going to push for immigration reform, he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language network Univision on Tuesday. Obama, who largely managed to hold on to office on the backs of Hispanic voters, has long looked to easing the plight of the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants, but other issues have kept coming in the way during his second term.

Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte, chair of the House Judiciary Committee overseeing immigration, said he expected Congress to pursue reform legislation despite a tight schedule featuring debates over Syria, health care, and the debt limit. Those and other issues “should not deter us from getting to [immigration] as soon as possible,” Goodlatte said in an appearance on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show on Tuesday. Goodlatte said he expected votes soon, perhaps in October, on a series of smaller House bills on border security, internal enforcement, guest workers, and high-tech visas. “Those bills are ready to go to the floor of the House...