Posted on 05/11/2015 12:33:46 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the all-but-declared Republican presidential candidate currently leading the polls in Iowa, sounds more like Alabama senator Jeff Sessions when he discusses immigration issues these days.
“The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal-immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages,” Walker told Glenn Beck on April 20. “It is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today, is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that to be at the forefront of our discussion going forward,” he said, citing Sessions by name as someone with whom he’d discussed the issue.
Two weeks earlier, in a Washington Post op-ed, Sessions had declared, “Legal immigration is the primary source of low-wage immigration into the United States. In other words, as a matter of federal policy — which can be adjusted at any time — millions of low-wage foreign workers are legally made available to substitute for higher-paid Americans.”
As the 2016 Republican presidential primary takes shape, Walker’s echo of Sessions’s tougher stance sets up proposals to reduce the rate of legal immigration as a party-splitting flashpoint, pitting the Wisconsin governor against other contenders who have emphasized their family ties to legal immigrants — Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and, to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal.
As the 2016 Republican presidential primary takes shape, Walker’s echo of Sessions’s tougher stance sets up proposals to reduce the rate of legal immigration as a party-splitting flashpoint.
Walker and his nascent, not-yet-official campaign are quick to downplay Sessions’s influence on their newly emphasized focus, declaring that while Sessions is a valued voice on the issue, he’s just one of many people Walker has consulted on the subject.
“This is not me embracing any one particular lawmaker,” Walker told the Quad City Times during a trip to Iowa in late April. He added that he had visited border states, and met with employers in Wisconsin and across the country, as well as lawmakers, “Senator Sessions being one of many.”
“Governor Walker has talked with a large cross-section of business leaders, academics, immigration attorneys, think-tank leaders, and state and federal elected officials, including the head of the Senate immigration subcommittee, “ says AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Walker’s Our American Revival PAC.
“Senator Sessions is grateful for the chance to talk to him, and they had a good conversation, but we’re declining to characterize the conversation,” a Sessions staffer says.
No committee chair in the Senate draws a harder line on immigration, legal or illegal, than Sessions. For Walker, a future endorsement or even just praise from the senator would provide some useful political cover with conservatives, who may have doubts about his stance on immigration.
The issue of immigration has given Walker headaches early in the presidential cycle. In a March 1 interview with Chris Wallace, Walker conceded, “my view has changed. I’m flat-out saying it,” when discussing his 2013 support for a proposal to allow illegal immigrants to, “with the right penalties and waiting periods and meet the requirements . . . get citizenship.”
Now, by suggesting legal immigration should be reduced if it would reduce unemployment and increase wages, Walker is drawing a harder line than many of his likely rivals, completing a transition from one-time supporter of the Kennedy-McCain comprehensive immigration-reform plan to one of the only figures in the 2016 field willing to campaign on reducing legal immigration.
For a lot of Republican lawmakers, celebrating legal immigration is a way to defuse accusations that they’re xenophobic or broadly anti-immigrant. But Sessions and his allies point out that even if the country were to effectively eliminate illegal immigration, the country’s existing legal-immigration system would still offer significant challenges to the United States, in terms of wages, job opportunities, and the ability to culturally assimilate new immigrants.
Sessions and others who want to see legal immigration reduced observe that advocates for legal immigration rarely mention specific numbers. Most Americans vastly underestimate the number of legal immigrants who come to the United States, currently around 1 million per year. To Sessions and his allies, such a large figure should dispel any notion that the country is xenophobic or unwelcoming to new citizens.
A call by Walker, or other GOP candidates, to ratchet down the rate of legal immigration would offer a vivid clash with the positions of several of the other candidates.
A call by Walker, or other GOP candidates, to ratchet down the rate of legal immigration would offer a vivid clash with the positions of several of the other candidates. Jeb Bush, for example, has suggested immigrants could be the key to revitalizing America’s impoverished inner cities.
“It just seems to me that maybe if you open up our doors in a fair way and unleashed the spirit of peoples’ hard work, Detroit could become in really short order, one of the great American cities again,” Bush said in 2013. “Now it would look different, it wouldn’t be Polish. . . . But it would be just as powerful, just as exciting, just as dynamic. And that’s what immigration does and to be fearful of this, it just seems bizarre to me.”
And it’s easy to picture a showdown in the early debates between Walker and Rubio, with each young Republican leader contending the other supports a legal-immigration policy that is contrary to the nation’s best interests.
When asked whether the number of legal immigrants should be reduced at the National Review Ideas Summit, Rubio responded that, “The number should be based on what our economic realities are, what they demand, there’s no magic number. . . . If you’re the smartest person in your field, or one of the smartest and most capable, I want you to bring those skills to America. We’ve always benefited from that.”
Rubio went on, “We shouldn’t underestimate how many immigrants truly want to become Americans. If you go to a naturalization ceremony — I went to one about four or five years ago — it’s extraordinary. 1,500, 2,000 people at the Miami Beach Convention Center and I never saw so much patriotism in one room. These are people that were Americans by choice, who wanted to be Americans who are proud to be Americans. It was extraordinarily uplifting.”
Walker’s likely to respond to an uplifting portrait of new Americans with hard numbers on employment and wages.
“It’s real simple,” Walker said in a radio interview April 27. “When unemployment is high and labor-participation rates are low, you don’t have very much immigration because you don’t want to flood the market. If, over time, unemployment goes down because they’re working a job, not because they stopped looking for jobs, then you can change things.”
January 3, 2011 - Walker assumes Office of Governor of Wisconsin.
June 27, 2011 Hispanic News Network USA: Walker Revokes In-state Tuition For Undocumented Students Attending Univ And Colleges In Wisconsin "- On Sunday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) signed his two-year 2011-2013 budget, which included ending in-state tuition for undocumented students attending public universities and colleges. In-state tuition for undocumented students was approved two years ago by former Governor Jim Doyle (D) after the Hispanic community struggled for 10 years to pass it."... [Wisconsin is the only state to revoke instate tuition for illegals.]
January 5, 2015 Hispanic News Network U.S.A.: Anti-immigrant State Republican controlled legislature and Governor takes office in Wisconsin
"Madison, WI - On Monday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) took office for a second term with a Republican majority legislature to continue their anti-immigrant stand in the state. Their extended agenda from 2014 for 2015, no driver license for undocumented, no optional César E. Chávez state workers holiday and no in-state tuition for undocumented college students in the state.
Governor Walker and the Republican controlled legislature support a Mexican Consulate for Wisconsin that would generate millions of dollars in the state economy, but they won't support for Mexican nationals to drive legally in the state...
Walker becomes the 45th Governor of Wisconsin, here's his complete oath of office and inaugural speech. Video link: http://vimeo.com/116006459
Governor Scott Walker stated, "Today, I thank God for His grace; for the privilege of living in such a remarkable country; and for growing up in the greatest state in the nation. As the son of a small town pastor and a part-time secretary in Delavan, it is quite an honor to serve as your Governor. Thank you for that cherished opportunity."
"I want to thank my family: Tonette-who is my rock and an amazing First Lady; our sons, Matt and Alex-who have done an outstanding job serving as our masters of ceremony here today; my parents, Llew and Pat Walker-who always set a powerful example of how to serve others;
my brother, David, sister-in-law, Maria, and their girls, Isabella and Eva; and to all of my other family members-I am grateful for all of your tremendous love and devotion....."
Walker/Cruz or Cruz/Walker . Why divide ourselves?
As governor Walker:
has lowered taxes by $2 billion in His state
Passed Many conservative laws ,more than all other candidates combined
Turned a huge deficit into a surplus
cut funding for illegal aliens
defeated democrats and the media in several elections in a blue state
Below I will post just some of Scott Walker’s accomplishments of passing conservative laws as governor including eliminating previous funding for illegal aliens . Words mean nothing .Actions , results and the record mean everything.These results of advancing conservatism show who Walker is a pro-American conservative. the liberal media’s spin are just lies to get communist Obama a 3rd third.
.I’m just putting up just SOME of Scott Walker’s accomplishments . Words mean nothing . Results and actions mean everything .
1.Walker’s 2011 Budget Eliminated A Program That Grants In-State College Tuition To Children Of Undocumented Immigrants(link===>):.
https://americanbridgepac.org/scott-walker-anti-immigrant-from-policy-to-personnel/
2. lowered taxes
3. passed conservative laws over democrat and media opposition
4. passed right to work laws
5. balanced the budget while cutting taxes and turning a huge deficit into a surplus
6. acted against climate change and against unions
7. many more conservative results
8. defeated democrats more than anyone in history to pass conservative laws
9. defeated democrats in several elections already some recall elections
Actions, results matter. Walkers record is unmatched in history
We’ll be lucky if we even have an election in 2016 as Obama will use the FCC to take over the Internet on June 12 , just in time for the election:
Americans aren’t even aware that the communist Obama is about to get the FCC to take over the Internet (Obama is taking over the Internet) with Soros socialist regulations
“(Soros strikes again!)FCC Cites Soros-Funded Marxist Group 46 Times in Regs (internet takeover) “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3267247/posts
Thank goodness somebody is getting this out there in the debate, it’s a darn sight more than ANYONE else is doing in this race.
Actions, results matter. Scott Walker’s record is unmatched in history
We’ll be lucky if we even have an election in 2016 as Obama will use the FCC to take over the Internet on June 12 , just in time for the election:
Americans aren’t even aware that the communist Obama is about to get the FCC to take over the Internet (Obama is taking over the Internet) with Soros socialist regulations
“(Soros strikes again!)FCC Cites Soros-Funded Marxist Group 46 Times in Regs (internet takeover) “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3267247/posts
Oh, I see this about the hard line of Jeff Sessions, not about the hard line of a session.
For a B+, "Sessions' hard line." For an A, "Sessions's hard line."
There’s no Catholic like a convert.
I would have thought protecting the integrity and the sovereignty of our borders would have been the first consideration.-Tom
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Carefully reinventing himself yet again.
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“I made it clear that for me, if somebody wants to be a citizen, they need to go back to their country of origin, get in line, no preferential treatment,” Walker said. “In terms of what to do beyond that, again, that’s something we got to work with Congress on.”
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>> “Scott Walker’s record is unmatched in history” <<
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Record number of new men in the same old body for sure!
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2. did walker cut taxes by $2 billion dollars? YES
3. Did Scott Walker pass many conservative laws as governor ? YES
4. did Scott Walker balance the budget as governor? YES
5. did Scott Walker pass right to work laws and defeat the unions? yes
etc. etc. That's more than anyone has done and shows who he is. Conservative is as conservative does. words mean nothing
Thanks for that info.
It restores my faith in Walker.
Right now I am looking for a Prez Walker and VP Cruz ticket. -tom
It’s what liberals do best. Well that and lie about what they believe. And have USCOC as a primary backer...and...
The liberal news media does gotcha interviews and gotcha articles that are just propaganda meant to smear conservatives.
What matters is conservative results, actions, a long RECORD as governor of achieving conservative results and NO liberal results. That’s Scott Walker and shows who he is . You want to give more importance to liberal media news articles than what he’s actually done.
What he has done is to 108 his view on immigration going from amnesty for illegals with his path crap to restricting LEGALS. THEN going to the #2 supporter of ILLEGALS behind LaRaza to fund his campaign.
ALL while being GOP Establishment to his core.
And you don’t see an issue with any of that? You think the USCOC is going to back his new play on restricting ANY immigration? Do you think big support and donations arent really vote buying?
Edit: 180
The ruling class will freak out when polls show that the vast majority of America supports the Walker/Sessions position.
I’m just putting up just SOME of Scott Walker’s accomplishments . Words mean nothing . Results and actions mean everything .
1.Walker’s 2011 Budget Eliminated A Program That Grants In-State College Tuition To Children Of Undocumented Immigrants(link===>):.
https://americanbridgepac.org/scott-walker-anti-immigrant-from-policy-to-personnel/
2. lowered taxes
3. passed conservative laws over democrat and media opposition
4. passed right to work laws
5. balanced the budget while cutting taxes and turning a huge deficit into a surplus
6. acted against climate change and against unions
7. many more conservative results
8. defeated democrats more than anyone in history to pass conservative laws
9. defeated democrats in several elections already some recall elections
Actions, results matter. Walker’s long record of passing conservative laws and no liberal laws is unmatched in history
Conservative is as conservative does. He’s done nothing liberal nor for illegals and every chance Walker’s gotten he’s acted against illegals as the first post shows
I totally 100% agree. When a man goes hardcore against LEGAL immigration and then runs to the #2 backer of ILLEGAL immigration, those actions ABSOLUTELY say something. When he fully aligns himself with the GOPe leadership positions, those actions ABSOLUTELY say something.
The wrong thing.
It really doesn’t matter what he says at all because his actions there prove where his intentions are.
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