Free Republic

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.) will introduce immigration legislation on Monday in an effort to reach a budget deal before the federal government's current funding runs out on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bipartisan piece of legislation provides recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, commonly known as "Dreamers," an opportunity for citizenship while ordering a study to figure out what border security measures are needed, according to the Journal. DACA aimed to protect from deportation certain immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children. Senate aides told the Journal...

Democratic Senators are rejecting President Donald Trump’s four-part amnesty-and-immigration reform, and are instead working with business-first GOP Senators to pass an amnesty with only token reforms. “There is not likely to be a DACA deal, though we’re working every single day, on telephone calls and person to person, to try to reach this bipartisan agreement,” Sen. Dick Durbin told Jake Tapper on the February 4 edition of CNN’s State of the Union. Durbin said the Democrats would not stage another shutdown, but declared: I think we’re making real progress. I want to salute the moderates in both the Republicans and...

Sen. Richard Durbin has announced the death of his “Gang of Six” amnesty-giveaway bill and tepidly promised to develop a replacement bill sought by the party’s pro-amnesty base. But Durbin also listed a series of basic immigration problems he and his allies deliberately ignored during their media-aided effort to rush an amnesty rough Congress. That sudden recognition of well-known problems suggests that the Democrats leaders are trying to avoid another self-defeating debate on amnesty that would further damage many of their 2018 candidates. Durbin said Wednesday morning: We came up with an agreement. We presented it to the president through...

Cutting chain migration even more popular than legalizing Dreamers Americans strongly back giving illegal immigrant “Dreamers” a pathway to citizenship — but a new poll found they also strongly back the other changes President Trump is pushing to build a border wall system, eliminate the visa lottery and curtail the chain of family migration. The Harvard-Harris Poll, taken in the run-up to the government shutdown, even found huge support for cutting the level of legal immigration, which stands at more than 1 million a year, to less than half that. The findings challenge the Gang of Six immigration deal Democrats...

• The Senate voted 81-18 to break the filibuster and reopen the government. • Here is the bipartisan group that reached the deal.. • Democrats had debated whether to trust Senator Mitch McConnell’s word. • The House will have to vote on any measure the Senate passes before the government officially reopens.

“I’m telling you he did not use that word, George. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation. How many times do you want me to say that?” Sen. David Perdue told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “The gross misrepresentation was that language was used in there that was not used and also that the tone of that meeting was not contributory and not constructive,” he said. Perdue, a Georgia Republican, attended the meeting last Thursday with other GOP and Democratic lawmakers seeking to hammer out a deal on immigration when Trump reportedly wondered out loud why...

Appearing on this evening’s Hardball, Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat and leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, twice accused Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue of “flat-out lying” by saying that they didn’t hear President Trump refer to various countries as “s—holes.” Bass then took things an ugly step further, insinuating that President Trump might have bribed the two senators in some way. Said Bass: “I think that they’re flat-out lying. And maybe they’re getting something from the President for it.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Two Republican senators who hastily joined an immigration meeting at the White House this week said Friday they do not recall President Trump using vulgar language to describe countries in Africa and elsewhere. ut Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. Davild Perdue (R-Ga.) issued a joint statement Friday suggesting otherwise. “We do not recall the president saying these comments specifically,” Cotton and Perdue said. “But what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest.”

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR) said any deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy would have to include funding the border wall, ending chain migration, and ending the diversity lottery.

On day one of the 2018 government shutdown, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) came out and claimed that he offered President Trump funding for his border wall in exchange for protection for so-called Dreamers via the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and he turned it down. Since then, the liberal media have been running around claiming that Trump was the reason an agreement couldn’t be reached. But during Sunday’s Meet the Press, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) chastised the media for buying the claim “hook, line, and sinker.” The dust-up with NBC host Chuck Todd began after Cotton was explaining that...

Tom Cotton‏ Verified account @TomCottonAR Did you know Flake-Graham-Durbin grants AMNESTY to parents of DACA population? The whole rationale of DACA is kids ought not be responsible for the crimes of the parents. But can't parents be responsible for the crimes of the parents?!

The more Americans focus on immigration policy, the worse the Democrats will look. No one knows when the government shutdown will be ended, but it’s increasingly likely that Democrats will rue the day they launched it. “I’m concerned that we don’t have an exit strategy,” one Democratic aide for a liberal senator told NBC News on Sunday. He went on to say: “This is a question of who’s going to flinch first.” . . . snip But they (democrats) should worry that the longer the shutdown debate is focused on immigration, the more Americans will come to realize it’s about...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the Republican-led Congress should offer a path to citizenship for DREAMers now and pass a bill that deals with border security and “chain migration later” in exchange for granting “amnesty” to all undocumented immigrants. Rather than waiting until Congress can agree on some sort of comprehensive immigration package, conservatives in Congress have argued that any deal granting legal status to “Dreamers,” called so in reference to the DREAM Act, should be tied to additional border security measures, such as funding for the border wall and legislative language that prevents “chain migration,” or family reunification, in...

In the latest blow to the pure image portrayed by their supporters in Congress, newly released statistics show that over 500 illegals stripped of their “dreamer” status due to crime and gang charges remain on the streets. A new analysis of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics found that 2,127 individuals had their amnesty status terminated for criminal activity and/or gang activity as of November 22, 2017. Of those booted from the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival amnesty program, 562 were deported. But, said the analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies, a near equal amount — 535...

Perhaps it is time to award Vanity Fair contributor T.A. Frank a kewpie doll for experiencing a brief moment of mental clarity. Although his January 21 column takes the requisite liberal shots at President Donald Trump and Republicans over the current government shutdown, when you get past that and dig into his details it amazingly suggests that Trump was correct in holding firm on the DACA conditions he clearly set forth which must be met for any negotiations to go forward on that issue. Frank's begins with his recognition that despite the obfuscation by the Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,...

Appears McConnell blinked, Democrats will now vote Yes and reopen government. What is the agreement?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that the United States would never recover from the “stain” of deporting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, who are often called "Dreamers." During a Sunday show interview, Sanders said their deportations would be “one of the ugliest stains” in American history. “If we allow Trump to get away with what he did, and that is repeal the executive order on DACA, and if these 800,000 people, young people, are subjected to deportation, this will be one of the ugliest stains in the history of the United States,” Sanders told CNN’s...

Democrats and Republicans have agreed to a deal which will end the US government shutdown. The government partially shut down on Friday after a funding deadline ran out because the two parties had failed to agree on a deal. On Monday afternoon Democratic senators announced they have agreed to a deal with the Republicans which paves the way to reopen the federal government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the party's most senior senator, announced that the party would vote to advance a plan to reopen the government.

Senate Democrats say they are accepting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for an immigration vote, clearing the way for passage of a bill to reopen the federal government. McConnell, early Monday, promised to take up an immigration bill that would protect an estimated 800,000 "Dreamers" from deportation, under an open amendment process, if Democrats would agree to end the government shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) said that pledge was enough for his caucus to accept a three-week government funding bill, which is now set to pass at noon. "After several discussions, offers and counteroffers,...

I believe it is time for Conservative leaders to very directly, very publicly, and very loudly challenge the "Gang of 6", including Senators Graham, Flake, and Gardner, on an easily understandable question: Why do we need more unskilled and low skill immigrants from ANY country? This especially when millions of US citizens still languish, driven out of the job market entirely. This when any person of any sense at all knows that we face stiff competition around the world. This when companies looking to hire here say a serious problem is lack of competent applicants. Mind you that I detest...