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Bipartisan House group reaches an "agreement in principle" on immigration reform, says GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): "So in the span of four days, [there were] three major revelations about the use of government power to intimidate those who are doing things that the government doesn’t like. These are the tactics of the third world.

Jon Feere is the Legal Policy Analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appears in a new television advertisement designed to promote the immigration amnesty bill currently being debated in Congress. The minute-long advertisement calls the proposal "conservative immigration reform" and attempts to make amnesty appealing to Republican voters. Partisan politics aside, the amnesty ad is misleading on a number of counts, outlined below.The ad was produced by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg who created the floundering FWD.us, an advocacy group aimed at promoting amnesty. One of the group's offshoots is something called "Americans for a Conservative Direction",...

Por La Raza, Todo! Joe Biden in full pander mode, totally without shame.- by John HillStand With ArizonaFew can equal Vice President Joe Biden as a race-baiting panderer. And Joe is increasingly making his professed amor for "Hispanics" standard fare for his stump speeches pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. Biden never misses an opportunity to put Hispanics - and especially illegals - on a pedestal. In January, addressing a group of newly-elected Latino members of Congress, Biden insisted that "now the nation -- and I might add the hemisphere -- understands the Hispanic community must be courted. Must be courted....

A co-author of a disputed Heritage Foundation report on a new immigration bill has resigned amid controversy over claims he made about immigrants having low IQs. A spokesman for the conservative think tank confirmed Jason Richwine's resignation Friday without offering details. Richwine was one of two authors of a report released Monday that said immigration legislation pending in the Senate would cost $6.3 trillion over 50 years as immigrants consumed federal benefits without making up for it in taxes. The report quickly came under attack as critics from the left and right said it didn't account for economic benefits from...

Everytime I hear Marco Rubio pitching amnesty courtesy of Zuckerberg's fake, Trojan horse "Americans for a Conservative Dirction" I get madder and madder. I just heard another such radio spot with Rubio telling lie after lie about the 8 gangsters' amnesty bill. The ad says its the "toughest border measure in America's history", "border security on steroids", "bold, very conservative", etc., etc. ad nauseum. Any guy that can pitch for Zuckerberg like this, telling the most bald-faced lies imaginable, is no conservative. A FReeper (sorry, I can't remember to whom to give the credit) accurately called him "Marco Dupio" the...

The American Conservative Union has just released a statement in support of Sen. Marco Rubio’s bipartisan effort on immigration reform, suggesting that there was widespread conservative support for the bill. “It is an honor to bring together fellow conservatives who feel strongly that we need to act now to fix our broken immigration policies and our borders,” said ACU Chairman Al Cardenas in the statement. “I congratulate my friend Senator Marco Rubio for his leadership on this issue and believe that conservative support for his efforts is growing.” Cardenas clarified that the bill was “not perfect” but that Rubio was...

Buried deep in the colossal immigration bill that’s floating around Congress is an obscure little section that rewrites the current immigrant visa waiting list to allow millions to cut in front of the line via new categories of family-sponsored immigrants. As if it weren’t bad enough that the measure, known as the Schumer-Rubio bill after the New York Democrat and Florida Republican pushing it, already offers 11 million illegal aliens instant amnesty. A nonpartisan group dedicated to researching legal and illegal immigration into the U.S., discovered the provision in the course of dissecting the monstrous legislation, which at last count...

American Action Network is pimping Marco Rubio and amnesty. They spent $300,000 television advertising campaign to “end de facto amnesty.” The ad will only run on Fox News. Of course, the amnesty bill supported by Rubio, McCain, Lindsey Graham and Democrat is de facto amnesty. Of course American Action Network doesn’t want you to believe that. They tout Marco Rubio in an ad called ‘disaster’ ad that’s been on (especially on Hannity) the last few days. Watch out for American Action Network. They may try and appear to be conservative, but they are nothing more than a progressive action group....

Immigration Reform News: Leahy Formally Pushes 2 Same-Sex Amendments Sen. Leahy wants same sex couples to be able to sponsor green cards their foreign-born spouses just like heterosexual couples. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Tuesday formally filed two amendments, both covering same-sex couples, to the comprehensive immigration reform bill. The first amendment would allow Americans in same-sex relationships to sponsor green cards for their foreign-born partners. The second would provide the same protection to legally married bi-national same-sex couples that's afforded to others under existing immigration law. “For immigration reform to be truly comprehensive, it must include...

MSNBC’s co-host of The Cycle, Touré, declared his support on Monday for “the open borders movement.” While he says that the Senate’s immigration reform plan is a welcome development, it will never go far enough in making it easier for immigrant labor to come to America. Touré added that, just as currency and employment are borderless, immigration should also be borderless. He noted that chronic poverty plaguing foreign nations and fueling terrorism would be alleviated by open borders. “The answer to our immigration issue is open borders,” Touré declared. “Tear down the fences. Rip up the red tape. Yup; I’m...

Are snowboard instructors key to American immigration policy? Well, they're important enough to be specifically included in the Senate bipartisan Gang of Eight immigration reform bill. How did that happen? The original 844-page Gang of Eight bill, released in mid-April, granted a break to certain foreigners who come to the United States to work but do not wish to settle here. The Gang -- which includes Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet from the nation's skiing capital of Colorado -- gave one of those breaks to anyone who is "a ski instructor seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing...

Cesar Conda is Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff. He recently made his Tweets private (protected) so the general public can’t read them. Cesar Conda has been pushing amnesty for illegals on Twitter and else as Marco Rubio’s PR agent. Conda, who is an immigration lawyer, went to work for George Soros before becoming Rubio’s Chief of Staff. Cesar Conda worked on the editorial advisory board of George Soros magazine, The International Economy Magazine. Cesar Conda had been spinning lies about the amnesty bill about how illegal wouldn’t get welfare, wait more than 10 years for citizenship, etc. Those lies have...

Amnesty, and particularly citizenship, for people who broke the law to get here is bad policy because it rewards law breakers and advantages them over law abiders. It’s also very costly, as a study released by the Heritage Foundation demonstrates, The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer: Executive Summary Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue: Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Means-tested welfare benefits. There...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions estimates about 57 million new people, immigrants and people with nonimmigrant visas, will be entering the United States to compete with middle class Americans for their jobs if the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill passes. Sessions’ staff released an analysis detailing how they reached that number on Friday morning. “This is a number that exceeds the population of the state of California, our largest state,” Sessions said on a conference call with reporters discussing the analysis. “It’s a very, very significant impact on our economy and the American people.” Sessions argued that...

Please dont’t miss John Fonte’s piece on NRO about provisions in the Gang of Eight bill (see pages 370-94) that will funnel federal dollars to left-wing activists so they can organize illegal aliens who obtain amnesty. The money is cleverly earmarked as intended to help integrate immigrants. Thus, it is designated for programs that will promote “linguistic, economic, and civic integration.” But who will get the money? According to the legislation, it will go to states, localities, and non-profit organizations. The best evidence of who, specifically, the beneficiaries will be can be found by looking at groups who currently receive...

Next week, the Senate will begin making changes to and, hopefully, improve the immigration-reform legislation I introduced with several colleagues last month. This part of the process is a chance to fix America's broken immigration system and end today's de facto amnesty for those who live here illegally. It will also show that Washington can work when leaders listen to the American people and invoke their wisdom in debates and legislative work. In January, I outlined my principles for conservative immigration reform in these pages—principles that guided the drafting of this legislation. These include securing the borders; requiring all employers...

A billboard taking aim at U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is expected to be installed next week in Georgia, said the head of a conservative group that is behind the effort. The group is unhappy with the Florida lawmaker because of his central role in a bipartisan Senate bill that seeks to reform immigration laws, by among other things, tightening enforcement, expanding the guest worker program......

Here they come: Migrants bound for the U.S. border ride on top of a train in Ixtepec, in Oaxaca, southern Mexico (AP).- For months, Stand With Arizona has been reporting (most recently here, here and here) on the massive increase in border crossings since Obama and the 'Gang of Eight' started promising amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. And I have been interviewed by two dozen media outlets from the Washington Post and L.A. Times to CNN and even FoxNews. Each time I begged them to report the truth about what border agents were telling me - that a tidal...

Once the darling of the Tea Party, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has faced an intense backlash of criticism from the conservative wing of his party over his support for comprehensive immigration reform. Rubio, a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight that authored the bill, has furiously tried to blunt the criticism this week, acknowledging concerns that the bill does not go far enough to ensure border security and prevent "amnesty," an ambiguous but potent fear among opponents of immigration reform. "I don't disagree with that being a major problem," Rubio said in an interview on Sean Hannity's radio...

The Texas freshman has become the face of the GOP opposition to immigration reform—and that could boost the senator’s prospects in 2016, reports David Catanese. Three weeks after he was elected to the Senate, Ted Cruz delivered a speech in a dimly lit downtown Washington hotel ballroom addressing the thumping his party had sustained at the ballot box, particularly at the hands of Hispanic voters. “The issue is not, as the media would suggest, 100 percent about immigration,” the Texas senator told the banquet of conservatives, deriding the press corps’s “obsessive” focus on that issue. “I think Republicans need to...

Looks like you've lost The National Review, Senator... More- RUBIO: Gang o' 8 Immigration Bill 'Might Have Trouble in the Senate' and 'Can't Pass the House' Rubio Flushing His Political Aspirations -and the Entire GOP- Down the Toilet _________________________________________________________________ -h/t Drudge-

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Boston’s conservative radio host Howie Carr on Wednesday that the political momentum is starting to turn against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. When Carr asked the senator if this process behind the push for this bill is the “same thing as Obamacare” where “we have to pass it so we can read it,” Sessions replied: “Absolutely, it really is.” “That is exactly what it is,” Sessions said. “They’re selling the sizzle. They’re selling the smell. And it’s a shoe leather instead of a steak.” Carr said that though everyone...

After initial confident talk from the Gang-of-Eight and left-wing babblemeisters -some speaking of 70+ votes in the Senate- suddenly the ill-advised immigration legislation recently touted as near-inevitable is looking wobbly... same script (so far) as a recent congressional offensive against the 2nd Amendment, how bout that: “The bill that’s in place right now probably can’t pass the House,” Rubio told Mike Gallagher, a nationally syndicated talk show host. 'It will have to be adjusted, because people are very suspicious about the willingness of the government to enforce the laws now.' He continued: 'That is a very legitimate suspicion, it’s one...

There's a growing partisan divide over whether gay Americans should be able to sponsor their partners for green cards The tide is clearly turning on gay rights, with same-sex marriage being legalized in states across America and several countries all over the world. But supporting gay rights can still be a political liability in Washington. According to Politico, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has said that he will introduce an amendment to the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill that would allow gay American citizens to sponsor their foreign-born partners for green cards, just like straight couples can. That's a big...

A modest proposal: an immigration system for the United States greatly superior to any currently proposed or likely to pass the US Congress. Silicon Valley billionaires and near-billionaires are attempting to influence public opinion on the immigration issue, with a US$50 million Political Action Committee. Their employees should consider whether their interests would be served by organizing in a truly aggressive isolationist union, like the 1950s United Auto Workers. After all, if the world market for computer scientists is equalized in price by massive immigration, their living standards will gravitate towards those of Bangalore, their largest single source of supply....

<p>And by executive decree, President Obama officially flings open our borders. He steadfastly refuses to uphold his oath to faithfully execute the Office of President, and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Instead he ignores the constitution, ignores the laws he chooses, and refuses to secure our nation or secure our borders. He now proudly announces to the world and even advertises in Spanish in Mexico that Mexicans illegally crossing the U.S. border will not be apprehended once they're safely away from the border and, in fact, are then free to apply for foodstamps and other government freebies and the agencies they apply to are not even allowed to ask about their legal status, nor will they be reported or deported.</p>

The effort to secure the borders and reform immigration law is about to enter a crucial month at the end of which the fate of the bill will almost certainly be known. The bill as it emerged from the Gang of 8 can probably not pass the Senate and certainly wouldn’t pass the House, nor should it. But the Gang of 8 draft was only, as Senator Marco Rubio has said repeatedly said, “a starting point.” A policy and political disaster awaits if a bill emerges from the Senate that cannot generate enough momentum to get even an amended version...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is A.J., San Francisco.  A.J., thank you for holding.  Great to have out program.  Hello. CALLER:  Yes, I had a question Rush.  On your Friday show you took a call and you said that if the GOP passes the immigration law, it's the end of the GOP, they'd be dead.  On yesterday's show you took a call from somebody and you said that Marco Rubio is a true conservative, basically we should still support him. So my question to you is, how can we support somebody who is sponsoring a bill that will kill the GOP?...

Marco Rubio the Amnesty man

In the current debate over revamping the nation's immigration laws, there may be no elected official with more on the line than Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio, a Republican and Cuban-American from Miami, was elected to the Senate with strong support from the Tea Party and other conservatives. Rubio's challenge is to convince conservative skeptics that by supporting an immigration overhaul, he hasn't betrayed them. Among other things, the Senate immigration bill tightens security on the borders and creates a pathway for immigrants who came to the country illegally to become citizens. Eight senators — four Democrats and four Republicans...

Tsarnaev family received $100G in benefits Monday, April 29, 2013 PrintEmail Comments (103) By: Chris Cassidy The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned. The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify. “The breadth of the benefits the...

'You’re a nice guy. That's a problem.  Nice guys are only popular in prison and in the Senate- and for similar reasons.' Today's Republican Party suffers from a paucity of those who can effectively communicate the conservative message. So what a shame I might not be able to vote for one of the few who DID possess that gift... WHAT on God's green Earth are you thinking, dude? Has it yet occurred that you're a DREAM prop for the Democrats here- the hispanic Republican who's marching lockstep with them on a bill that MANY of us see little good in? That...

despite the glaring facts, during the last fifteen minutes of today's show, el rushbo reiterated his belief that rubio is a "thoroughbred conservative"?!?!~

Must Washington fix our broken southern border? You bet. Will the comprehensive immigration reform bill help? You bet it won’t. The number one flaw of the bill is it starts by giving amnesty to the unlawfully present population in the United States. As soon as the bill passes, those in the country contrary to U.S. immigration law are granted status to stay. Amnesty immediately creates an incentive for illegal border crossings and overstays. Thus, the bill’s strategy would drive up the cost of securing the border. To make matters worse, the draft law states that anyone who was present in...

Led by Senator Marco Rubio, the "Gang of Eight" is attempting to hide the fact that their "comprehensive immigration reform" bill would provide amnesty for illegal aliens and their employers. A preliminary analysis of pp. 59 to 150 of S. 744 reveals that, like the failed 2007 amnesty bill, the Gang's bill contains 11 clear-cut amnesties for both illegal aliens and for their employers, while doing absolutely nothing about the millions of victims of illegal aliens

Senator Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform proposal, has often challenged those who criticize the bill to come up with ways to improve it. And not just his fellow lawmakers; Rubio has opened a new page on his Senate website asking for help from the public. “Visit our website and submit your ideas to ‘Help Us Improve the Bill,’” says an announcement from Rubio’s office Friday. “Since the immigration legislation was introduced, Rubio has received over 1,100 suggestions for how to improve the bill. Rubio encourages the public to continue reviewing the bill...

It’s hard to believe that Marco Rubio has only been in the Senate since January 2011. With the way he has been going on lately, telling conservatives what a bunch of unenlightened rubes we are for objecting to his immigration reform, you would think he’d been a Senator for 20 years.

On April 17, my colleagues and I introduced immigration legislation. It marked a first step toward achieving the strongest border security and enforcement measures in U.S. history, modernizing our legal immigration system to unleash strong economic growth and job creation, and dealing with our undocumented immigrant population in a tough, but fair way that is directly linked to achieving several security triggers. While I believe this legislation will accomplish these things, I am also confident that an open and transparent process – one that engages every senator and the American people – will make it even better. I believe this...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio went on seven Sunday talk shows to pitch a bipartisan immigration reform deal, while a handful of Republican lawmakers famous for their wacky cable news interviews can’t get any attention. An anti-immigration “gang of six” in the House is trying to stop the pro-immigration “gang of eight” in the Senate, The National Review’s Robert Costa reports, but hardly anyone’s listening. The six are cable TV favorites: Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann, Iowa’s Steve King, Texas’ Louie Gohmert, Alabama’s Mo Brooks, Pennsylvania’s Lou Barletta, and California’s Dana Rohrabacher. There were zero “anti-amnesty” Sunday show guests the week before Rubio’s...

The Senate's bipartisan "Gang of Eight" oozed confidence on Thursday that they could deliver on their promise to pass the most significant immigration bill in a generation. Organizers gathered over 20 leaders from business, labor, religious and civil rights groups in order to display broad support for their plan. In an unlikely pairing, renowned anti-tax activist Grover Norquist stood alongside AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the leader of the nation's largest labor coalition. Senators from both parties yukked it up with jokes throughout the hour-long affair. "We'll oppose only those amendments that are intended to prevent a comprehensive solution from passing,"...

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Scott Brown joined John McCain in denouncing the congresswoman's Muslim witch hunt Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the party and a potential vice-presidential pick for Mitt Romney, said this morning that he disagreed with Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann’s baseless call to investigate Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S. government. Appearing on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, Rubio was asked by a caller if he would join Republican Sen. John McCain’s strong condemnation of the anti-Muslim witch hunt on the Senate floor yesterday. While Rubio said he doesn’t personally know Huma Abedin, a...

Goodlatte’s power irks the Senate’s Gang, since he isn’t making a path to legalization for illegal immigrants a priority. “We can’t do individual bills,” Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York said this week, when asked about Goodlatte’s strategy. “The idea of doing separate bills is just not going to work.” Goodlatte shrugs off that criticism. In fact, he says, the Senate’s push to lead their proposal with a path-to-legalization component has dampened the House’s enthusiasm for pursuing a larger package. “When the president and others put down a mandate saying, ‘This has to be in there,’ you have to worry...

The Senate’s complex immigration bill would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal immigrants from jobs, and then create an enforcement gap for several years before the arrival of a replacement system. “There’s no doubt that the bill eliminates E-Verify immediately upon signing,” said Kris Kobach, secretary of state of Kansas, told The Daily Caller. “If there’s no statutory authority for E-Verify, there’s no E-Verify,” said Kobach, a lawyer trained at Harvard, Oxford and Yale universities, and a prominent advocate for reduced immigration. The claim is vehemently disputed by the bills’ advocates, including staffers...

The U.S. government has been caught promoting the delivery of taxpayer-funded welfare benefits to foreigners, and Judicial Watch’s conclusion is that the Obama administration “cannot be trusted to protect our borders.”… the U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with the Mexican government to promote the U.S. food stamp program to illegal aliens. The report said the program,called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,features a Spanish-language flyer supplied to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA “with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance.” Just so they don’t...

Instead of promoting amnesty, Sen. Rubio could demand that the Obama administration enforce 8 U.S.C. § 1302, "Registration of Aliens", which makes it "the duty of every alien" to register their presence in the United States if they remain here 30 days or longer.

Schumer wants one big bill, Rubio could support a step-by-step approach. The landmark Affordable Care Act at 974 pages is still a powerful reminder of how sweeping legislation coming out of Washington can get messy fast. The analogy is so compelling that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell still wheels all the regulations the bill has created on stage for speeches. Stacked page by page, the display towers above McConnell at 7-feet-3-inches. It's the continuous reminder, aides say, that sometimes Washington passes well-intentioned legislation that snowballs into an implementation nightmare. So as Congress debates the many facets of immigration reform from administering...

Members of the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight have stressed that under their new immigration plan, currently illegal immigrants will have to wait more than a decade before achieving citizenship. Newly-legalized immigrants will be given a provisional status and “will have to stay in that status until at least ten years elapse and [border security] triggers are met,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told Fox News on April 14. “Then the only thing they get is a chance to apply for a green card via the legal immigration system.” The green card process would take additional years, meaning the road...

Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio seems well meaning enough. As second-generation conservative Americans, I know we both share a common passion for this great land of opportunity. But when it comes to comprehending the real agenda of the open-borders zealots he's allied himself with, Rubio doesn't have a clue. And his abject ignorance threatens all of us who cherish American sovereignty and exceptionalism. On Fox News' "The Sean Hannity Show" Tuesday night, Rubio defended his Gang of Eight "immigration reform" bill and insisted that we could and should have a system in place that vets foreign tourists and short-term visa...

There are times when the words "never" and "always" are the only ones that work. In my case, "never" is becoming the word I must use to describe how I feel about certain candidates for high office. For example, I voted four times for a Bush and once for a McCain — something I will never do again. In 1988, it was Bush the elder over Michael Dukakis. In 1992, I resisted the temptation to punish President "Read-My-Lips" by casting my ballot for Ross Perot, knowing that a vote for the pintsized Texas screwball would simply be handing the presidency...