Free Republic

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions said the United States needs to curb legal immigration along with illegal immigration, and fast. We need a timeout, don't you know, and the only folks who favor letting more foreigners in are monocle-wearing, cigar-smoking elitists: High immigration rates help the financial elite (and the political elite who receive their contributions) by keeping wages down and profits up. For them, what’s not to like? That is why they have tried to enforce silence in the face of public desire for immigration reductions. They have sought to intimidate good and...

As Congress restarts conversations about the federal budget and deficit reduction, the immigration reform debate is still front and center for many. As that debate unfolds, it is important to put some hard facts on the table. What are the costs and benefits of reform? What impact will reform have on economic growth and wages? How will immigration reform affect the federal budget? A new study by the Bipartisan Policy Center Immigration Task Force found the evidence suggests that immigration reform can produce significant economic dividends for our country. -snip- A major finding of the study is that immigration reform...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s new push to get involved in Republican primaries by defending incumbents against tea party challengers could actually make it easier to unseat them, according to the head of the influential Club for Growth. Chris Chocola, the club’s president, said the battle between the chamber, which he said advocates big business, and the rank-and-file free-market conservatives whom his group represents is well underway as Republicans try to field their candidates for the 2014 congressional elections. The latest fight is shaping up in Idaho, where the chamber announced this week that it will run ads defending incumbent...

Much of the reporting on House Speaker John Boehner’s hiring of Rebecca Tallent to “lead immigration efforts in the House” has focused on her experience as a senior aide to Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) and her work with the late senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.) on the failed immigration-reform efforts of 2006–7. Less has been made of her most recent position as director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a think tank founded by a group of former Senate majority leaders from both parties. This association, critics say, is far more relevant to the current immigration...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching ads backing eight-term Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, who faces a primary challenge in Idaho, and two GOP candidates in West Virginia as the business organization ramps up its political activity for next year's congressional elections. The Chamber's involvement in Idaho marks the second time in recent months that the group has taken sides in the internal Republican fight pitting the GOP establishment against conservative activists. The group backed Bradley Byrne over tea party favorite Dean Young in a special congressional runoff primary in Alabama, pumping at least $200,000 into the race. Byrne won...

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...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday there still is a possibility of immigration reform this year. “I think that, in fact, the idea that either a comprehensive approach or a multi-tiered approach is not going to happen by the end of the year, I don’t think that that’s necessarily true,” Priebus told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt. “I think it can happen and I think people like Paul Ryan and others still want something like that to happen,” Priebus said. -snip- Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who helped craft the Senate’s immigration bill, said Thursday the window for passing immigration reform...

The House's failure to pass immigration reform could create political trouble for a growing number of Republican representatives from districts with sharply rising Latino and Asian populations. The problem is especially apparent in California, where Latino and Asian populations in Republican districts are triple the national average. Both groups gave President Obama more than 70 percent of their votes in 2012. -snip- It is not clear that Republicans will schedule a vote, and Democrats are using the GOP's hesitation to bring the bill to the floor to depict them as unsympathetic to immigrants.

The head of the American Bankers Assn., who is a former GOP governor, made a strong pitch Monday to his fellow Republicans to support the bipartisan Senate immigration reform legislation by invoking party hero Ronald Reagan. Frank Keating, president of the group since 2011, said in a Times opinion article that Reagan would say "it's time to open the doors" to immigrants to boost the economy. Conservatives were wrong to oppose the Senate legislation, supported by President Obama, that would overhaul the system and provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the country without legal...

A new poll being released later Thursday could send a warning to politicians nationwide: Oppose immigration reform at your peril. The results from the survey, sponsored by a trio of GOP-friendly groups and provided to POLITICO in advance, indicate that voters will be warmer toward politicians who favor immigration reform, an effort that faces an uphill battle in the Republican-led House. -snip- Organizations that put together the poll includes Spies’s group (Republicans for Immigration Reform), as well as the Partnership for a New American Economy, the pro-reform coalition headed up by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Compete America,...

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....

Business leaders on Tuesday helped mobilize an army of advocates to pressure House Republicans into taking action on immigration reform. -snip- They also discussed how to hone their immigration reform message to appeal to Republicans on religious grounds. -snip- said Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. “Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Estle said he has met with conservative lawmakers and found that a religiously based message resonated with them. “We are trying to continue to point back to what the Bible has to say about welcoming the...

More than 600 conservative-friendly officials and activists are descending on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a lobbying blitz targeting a wide range of House lawmakers, primarily Republicans, on immigration reform. The effort spans lawmakers from about 120 congressional districts in about 40 states, said Josh Breisblatt, the advocacy and policy associate for the National Immigration Forum. It’s meant to make the conservative case for immigration reform to lawmakers by bringing business experts, religious leaders and law enforcement officials to the Hill. -snip- “Failure to come up now with a solution to immigration reform is a sign of weakness, not of strength,”...