Free Republic

Is immigration reform dead? "No, immigration reform is going to happen," Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Republican whip, told CBS's Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation."

Immigrant-rights advocates scrambled Friday to plead with House Speaker John A. Boehner to bring an immigration legalization bill to the floor before he leaves office next month, fearing his replacement will show even more antipathy toward their agenda. Mr. Boehner had long been pressing his party to tackle immigration, and in the days after President Obama’s 2012 re-election the Ohio Republican set one major goal: The House would pass a bill to legalize those in the country without authorization. But House GOP conservatives threatened a revolt, and Mr. Boehner and his fellow leaders backed off, instead blaming President Obama for...

I expect this will occur the day the pope throws open the gates of Vatican City to all who wish to live there.The Hill: Invoking Martin Luther King Jr. and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Francis made an impassioned plea for the refugees fleeing Syria, saying the crisis is “of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War.”Noting his own status as “the son of immigrants,” the pope pivoted to a more sensitive subject: The flow of illegal immigrants across the United States’s southern border.He urged compassion for immigrants, warning not to repeat “the sins and...

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum vowed Friday to pursue immigration policies that protect American workers, while warning voters that some of his GOP rivals have embraced a much softer approach to the issue. Mr. Santorum, the runner-up in the 2012 Republican nomination battle, urged the crowd that converged on a hotel in Washington, D.C., for the annual Values Voter Summit to recognize that a couple of the speakers before him — Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — have previously supported “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. “You have a lot of people that come up here and talk about how tough...

Hungary announced Friday that it has nearly completed a fence being built on the border with Croatia, as the central European nation takes another step to slam the door

Obama has hung the "Welcome to America" sign for tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, and God only knows where else, at the "command" of the United Nations. "Swiftboat" parades around the media "declaring" the US will increase its importation of refugees yearly in response to the Syrian crisis -- a crisis created by America, but I digress. Under the plan, the US government decided which States and cities would receive the "refugees," who are not refugees at all, but terrorists in disguise entering to join with their jihadi buddies hanging out in the 35 or so...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pope Francis beseeched Americans to end hostility toward immigrants in a historic speech before the U.S. Congress on Thursday, weighing in forcefully on a divisive issue that is stirring debate in the 2016 presidential campaign. Bringing a message that America's power and wealth should be used to serve humanity, the 78-year-old pontiff said the United States must not turn its back on "the stranger in our midst." "Building a nation calls us to recognise that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility," Francis told the Republican-led Congress in Washington a day after he...

Sophie Cruz's brief encounter with Pope Francis during his parade in Washington this week appeared to be the kind of spontaneous moment that is so endearing about this pope: an initially hesitant young child wrapping an arm around his neck as he offers a kiss and a blessing. But for 5-year-old Sophie, the moment unfolded as perfectly as it was scripted by members of a coalition of Los Angeles-based immigration rights groups. They had been preparing for nearly a year for the young girl from suburban Los Angeles to make a dash for the popemobile to deliver a message about...

A new round of contempt-of-court hearings began Thursday in Phoenix against the sheriff in the nation’s sixth-largest city over his defiance of a judge’s order to stop carrying out his signature immigration patrols. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose immigration crackdowns turned him into a national political figure, listened intently as his second-in-command testified about emails involving the agency’s violation of a key court order in the racial profiling case. The order demanding the office stop the patrols was ignored for 18 months. Arpaio could face fines as a result of the hearings and could later be called into criminal...

The Emperor’s New Clothes is the tale of an Emperor who loves clothes above all else. One day, two swindlers come to town who say they can weave the most magnificent, brilliantly colored cloth. And, they confide, garments made from this fabric have the special power of being invisible to those who are stupid or not fit for their post. The Emperor hires the swindlers and they set to work. In time, he sends trusted officials to check on the weaver’s progress. The officials see only empty looms but know of the cloth’s special power. So they tell the Emperor...

Pope Francis delivered a stinging blow to nativist conservatives bent on keeping illegal immigrants and Middle Eastern refugees out of the United States, saying Thursday in a landmark address to Congress that Americans should show compassion to immigrants of all stripes.

Pope Francis on Thursday urged the U.S. Congress to reject a "mindset of hostility" on immigration and to recognize people who wish to move to the United States as people who are trying to improve their lives and those of their families.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday rejected what he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “moral imperialism” as he outlined his own rival plan to tackle Europe’s migrant crisis. When asked what he expected from Merkel while Europe grapples with an influx of asylum-seekers, the hardline leader grinned: “I have a long list.” Orban accused Merkel of trying to impose her vision of an open EU on the rest of the bloc. “The most important thing is that there should be no moral imperialism,” he said during a visit to the southern German state of Bavaria. […] Orban’s appearance at...

A 5-year-old girl in a brilliantly colored dress and braids who was handed up to Pope Francis for a blessing during a parade in Washington on Wednesday morning urged the pontiff to give his blessing to immigration reform and push lawmakers to act. Sophie Cruz, of South Gate, California, delivered a bright yellow T-shirt and a letter expressing wishes that her mother and father and millions of others who are in the U.S. illegally are allowed to remain in the country. Her trip was sponsored by an advocacy group.

“We are heading towards disaster” exclaims UKIP’s Nigel Farage in this brief clip. Having warned for months about both the consequences of actions and the EU’s disastrous policies, the flood of immigrants, Farage warns “we face a direct threat to our civilization if we allow large numbers of people from that war-torn region into Europe.”Simply put, he fears within EU policy “there is no way to filter out extremists in favor of people fleeing in genuine fear of their lives,” and suggest following the Australian policy.

Muslims are the fastest growing bloc of immigrants, according to new census data published by the Center for Immigration Studies. The report, which analyzes data from American Community Survey (ACS), finds that the foreign-born population in the U.S. hit a new record high 42.4 million in July 2014. The report details that some of “the sending countries with the largest percentage increases in the number of immigrants living in the United States since 2010 were Saudi Arabia (up 93 percent); Bangladesh (up 37 percent); Iraq (up 36 percent); Egypt (up 25 percent); Pakistan, India, and Ethiopia (all up 24 percent);...

The Washington Examiner has taken the, “Beep beep, move along folks, nothing to see here” approach to try to bring down Donald Trump. These latest Wile E. Coyotes have pronounced, “Trump is obsessed with an immigration crisis that’s already over.” The illegal aliens they are talking about are being supported to the tune of $200 billion a year by the few Americans who are still working but that is not a problem, the Washington Examiner assures us. The fact that Barack Obama has done so well in “fundamentally transforming America” into a third country has made life so intolerable here...

Built in a matter of weeks by soldiers, prison laborers and cadres of the unemployed, a vast new wall along Balkan frontiers is a monument to the ruthless efficiency with which Prime Minister Viktor Orban has mobilized Hungary against migrants. Orban describes the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees and other migrants in Europe this year from Asia, Africa and the Middle East as an attack on the continent's Christian welfare model. Until last week, most trekked through Hungary, the main overland entry route into the EU's border-free Schengen zone from the Balkan peninsula, which they cross after arriving...

Jeb Bush admitted Monday his views on immigration may not be "mainstream" in the Republican Party. But he praised the "vitality" of a multicultural society as other GOP presidential candidates find themselves in trouble over comments about minorities. "If we embrace a set of shared values, then it shouldn't matter if you have a 'z' at the end of your name, or your accent might be different, 'cause guess what? There are people in this country, that have accents different from mine and mine's different from theirs. It doesn't matter," Bush said to a roomful of Hispanics. The former Florida...

Congress is set to drop a $2,000 H-1B visa fee mostly paid by India-based IT services providers. It's a move being met with incredulity by H-1B critics, but relief by the Indian offshore industry. The fee, adopted in 2010, was sought by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chaired the Senate immigration subcommittee when Democrats were in power. Schumer described the overseas firms as "multinational temp agencies" that undercut U.S. wages. The fee expires on Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year and there's is no immediate effort in Congress to extend it. The fee raises between $70...