Immigration Reform Update: Cornyn Plays A Shell Game In The Senate And Influential Republican Drops Out Of House Gang Of 8

Senator John Cornyn of Texas is going to offer an amendment to the Gang of 8 proposal to basically rewrite the security and enforcement sections of the bill.

Amnesty shill Jennifer Rubin has the outline.

Entitled the RESULTS amendment (Requiring Enforcement, Security and safety, & Upgrading Legitimate Trade and travel Simultaneously) the amendment would:

• Requires DHS Secretary and GAO Comptroller General to jointly certify that these triggers are met before

Registered Provisional Immigrants (RPI) can adjust to Lawful Permanent Resident (“green card”) status:

STOP right here.

Rubin goes on to list a number of good proposals from Cornyn but the devilish detail is right there, "Registered Provisional Immigrants can adjust....". In other words, Cornyn has some tough triggers to be met before illegals can get "green cards" BUT they still get legalized in some way BEFORE any actual border security improvements happen.

Now Team Rubio will say, "oh well it's just temporary status and if the triggers aren't met their legal status will expire". Is anyone stupid enough to believe that? Once there is any type of legalization it will NEVER be revoked.

Amnesty supporters will not budge on this because they know it's the whole game. Do you really think a President Hillary or even a President Rubio is going to say, "hey we can't secure the border but good news! We now have a list of all the temporarily legalized aliens are so when their probationary status expires, we'll just go round them up!" If it's impossible and inhumane to deport them now, how exactly will it be possible to do it in 5 or 10 years?

Don't buy the crap they are selling. Yes, Cornyn's triggers are a step in the right direction but the real deal is what order this happens in. Anything that has any type of legalization first moots the later triggers for green cards later, no matter how tough they are.

Given that Marco Rubio worked on this amendment with Cornyn, it'l be interesting to see what he does if the Democrats kill it. I think Rubio has painted himself into two opposite corners at once...he can't bail on the bill without looking like a loser who can't deliver and he can't sign on if the things he says have to be in it aren't.

BTW-If this stuff is so important to Rubio, why didn't he insist on it when he was working on the Gang of 8 bill? His leverage was at its peak then. It's almost as if the security stuff is all smoke and mirrors with Rubio. Almost.

Rubio is either playing some masterful 3D chess here or he's an idiot. And since I don't buy the idea of 3D chess in politics....

Meanwhile, over in the House....

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) — a key conservative who had been engaged in secret negotiations over immigration reform — said Wednesday that he will drop out of the so-called House Gang of Eight. The problem, Labrador said, was an impasse over how the pending legislation would address the issue of health care for undocumented immigrants. That issue had recently emerged as a major sticking point between Democrats and Republicans, and the negotiations had teetered on the edge of collapse at least three times in the last several weeks before drawing closer to an agreement again.

Not so shockingly, the other 3 GOP members of the House "gang" are still on board with the bi-partisan process and apparently with giving illegals ObamaCare subsidies. So yay GOP!

THIS is why I hate the GOP:

The problem, says the Cornyn aide, is that a security-first arrangement is just not politically possible. “You could put legalization contingent on triggers on the front end,” the aide says. “But that’s never going to pass Congress. Democrats are never going to vote for that. Republicans are never going to be unified on that. It’s never going to happen. You’re never going to be able to say, ‘enforcement first.’ It’s a purist position. It’s never going to become law.”

The only reason security first is politically impossible is because liberals are sticking to their purity position and apparently that's okay. It's those damn conservatives who are asking for politically impossible purity that must be brought to heel.

Notice the straw man in there...Republicans won't "unify" around security first. Well, they obviously aren't unifying around amnesty first either. Amazing how much higher the bar is set for conservatives (unanimity) than for liberals (just enough to help the Democrats pass it)

Things conservatives want: "purist position" that can never happen.

Things liberals want: Hey, that's just the facts of life that we all have to deal with. It's like the weather man, you can complain but it's not going to change.

And that's what OUR side thinks.

Added: The PERFECT response to Cornyn's aide.

It already is the law, and not enforcing it is the problem. Posted by: CTimbo at June 06, 2013 11:16 AM (IdpbF)

posted by DrewM. at 10:20 AM

| Access Comments