Free Republic

Michael Steele thinks House Speaker John Boehner needs to keep closer tabs on Sen. Ted Cruz. The former Republican National Committee chairman on Monday poked fun at reports that some House Republicans changed their minds on crucial border legislation last week after meeting with Cruz, the Texas Republican and tea party icon. “For John Boehner, whenever any of his members says, ‘Hey, I’m about to have pizza and beer with Ted Cruz,’ he should be concerned,” Steele joked. “Really look at the calendar and see if there’s a vote coming up,” he said, adding that Cruz “undermined” GOP leaders. Steele...

After twenty-eight days away from this desk I returned this past Sunday with pleasant memories and not too many tasks sitting in front of me. Arthritis is beginning to take its toll on me, in the feet, hands, knees, elbows, etc. and I face a schedule for the coming year that in most ways is even more challenging than this last year which I found very challenging. Everyone, uniformly and universally, counsels me to slow down, take it easy, and then presents me with some event where my presence is absolutely necessary so for me, like for many others of...

Unlike many of his fellow Republican lawmakers, U.S. Senator John Cornyn sounded a conciliatory note when talking about the border crisis in San Antonio on Friday afternoon. He complimented the federal government on its response along the border and treatment of the children who have immigrated from Central America, said that he would be open to compromise on his controversial — but bipartisan — proposal that would require the children have a hearing before an immigration judge within seven days of entering the country; and added that he would not touch President Barack Obama’s current policy that allows children of...

The Gang of Eight Senate immigration bill (S.744) passed last June would have roughly doubled the number of new foreign workers allowed into the country and legalized millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States. Both Tennessee senators — Lamar Alexander (R) and Bob Corker (R) — voted for it.

That seems like an awfully strong word, but it is the term that distinguished law professor Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric, uses to describe the Obama administrationÂ’s oft-reported plan to issue executive amnesty to five or six million illegal immigrants in violation of federal law. GlennÂ’s characterization is a fair one. When a tyrant asserts the right to rule by decree in a state that has formerly been subject to the rule of law, he is commonly described as carrying out a coup dÂ’etat. That is just what the Obama administration has done, and reportedly will continue to do. When Obama...

Dear Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of your progressive posse incapable of reason... ...if you were truly concerned about the plight of Mexican children & alike, why didn't you send enough food, clothes & medicine to these countries six years ago after Obama won election? Now, months before midterms and after you fail to pass Amnesty again, you orchestrate a mass exodus to our borders - with blood & chaos on your hands - in an attempt to blackmail Congress, stuff the ballot box with your newfound demographic, and nullify our immigration laws and very sovereignty?...

Remember this whole story began with leaked photos of the overcrowded Unaccompanied Alien Child detention centers, which we weren't supposed to know about until the invasion was much further along. We were fed a pack of lies about how it was foolish for those people to send their children here, because they had somehow misunderstood Obama's amnesty executive orders, when in reality the belief that they would be allowed to stay was absolutely correct. The illegal aliens were distributed across the United States with taxpayer-funded transportation by dark of night, exposed only when people began protesting the buses and planes...

In one of the more impassioned speeches on the House floor Friday night, Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador blamed President Barack Obama for the harm that has befallen some of the undocumented child immigrants crossing into the United States. Labrador said Obama’s 2012 executive action suspending deportation for some undocumented immigrants brought here as children helped encourage the current influx of tens of thousands from Central America. Many of them are being abused on the journey, he said. “Many of these children that are coming to the border don’t make it across the river,” Labrador said. “There are reports of the...

FALFURRIAS, Texas—Breitbart Texas has learned the U.S. Border Patrol has begun a surge operation in the area surrounding Falfurrias, Texas where large numbers of illegal immigrants have been found dead this year. A significant number of Border Patrol agents and equipment are expected to be visible in Brooks County beginning today. "We were told to expect it to rain bodies around here," one Border Patrol Agent told the deputies. A 44 passenger Customs and Border Patrol bus was seen in the area. Breitbart Texas learned the busses, designed to carry a large number if captured immigrants, are being brought up...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, pressed ahead Sunday with his multi-step immigration-reform plan, amid criticism that conservative voters have forced him to backtrack on comprehensive reform. “I didn’t get elected to watch national poll numbers,” the first-term Republican senator said on “Fox News Sunday.” Rubio said Washington has to address the “root causes” of the immigration issue, which has now turned into a crisis situation with tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American youths coming into the U.S. illegally along the country’s southern border. He said those problems include a 2008 law intended to protect children...

TECUN UMAN, Guatemala — The man-in-the-know nursed a late-morning beer at a bar near the Suchiate River that separates Guatemala from Mexico, and answered a question about his human smuggling business with a question: “Do you think a ‘coyote’ is going to say he's a ‘coyote’?” Dressed as a migrant in shorts and sandals but speaking like an entrepreneur, he then described shipments of tens of thousands of dollars in human cargo from the slums of Honduras and highlands of Guatemala to cities across the United States. “It’s business,” he said, agreeing to speak to a reporter only if guaranteed...

... When youths fail to appear, judges can order them deported. Since 2009, the number of such orders has more than doubled to 2,826 so far this fiscal year, according to court records. But the growth has been proportional to the caseload, leaving the no-show rate relatively unchanged at about 30%. They fail to appear for a variety of reasons, advocates say: Some move; others are confused, struggle to find attorneys or hide out of fear. By law, Central American youths are entitled to court hearings before they can be deported, but not to lawyers. About half of those who...

Other countries may turn away desperate children. But the United States should aim higher. If a child showed up at your doorstep, begging for help, what would you do? Most Americans, I suspect, would offer help, even if that meant simply calling the police, who would, hopefully, ascertain whether the child was really in danger. But a lot of Americans who would respond to such a scenario with compassion also believe that America should simply shut its door to desperate refugees. I would suggest that a moral nation has an obligation to come to the aid of children who are...

Over the last month, the Obama political apparatus — a close aide to the president, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the “independent” voices at MSNBC — has been talking nonstop about an alleged Republican plan to impeach the president. But it isn’t happening in a vacuum, because even as his team plays the impeachment card with gusto, the president is contemplating — indeed, all but promising — an extraordinary abuse of office: the granting of temporary legal status, by executive fiat, to up to half the country’s population of illegal immigrants. This is the tone of the media coverage...

ACLU: "No more deportations until illegals have lawyers." Hello? McFly? Anyone home? Think, McFly...they're trespassing illegal immigrants, a threat to national security and sovereignty, breaking countless federal and state statues. We have every right to arrest them and immediately deport them because they have absolutely no justifiable case; they're non-citizens who broke the law! Oh they have rights, alright; the right to go home and feel fortunate they weren't imprisioned! I'm going to jump the White House fence so the ACLU can immediately demand I can't be removed. I'll make sure to bring a tent, a potato gun and a...

President Obama is expected to take executive action to help illegal immigrants stay in the country while Congress is away on a five-week recess, pro-immigrant advocates said Saturday. Obama and his allies believe his authority to act without legislative approval has been strengthened by congressional gridlock over comprehensive reform. “I’ve heard not to expect anything until toward the end of August. They’ve been listening to suggestions by advocates over what could be done. The president has yet to make a decision about what steps he plans to take,” said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin...

The AP buried the lede in its report Saturday on President Barack Obama’s drive to grant by executive order legal status and work permits to millions of illegal aliens in defiance of Congress. At the very end of the 22 paragraph article, entitled Experts: Obama Can Do a Lot to Change Immigration, is mention that President George W. Bush considered doing what Obama is pushing for now after being similarly stymied by Congress on amnesty but his advisors concluded the presidency did not have the constitutional authority to act in such manner: "After a broad immigration bill failed in 2007,...

Normally, the Congressional votes are about as exciting as watching paint dry on growing grass, but when House Representative Tom Marino accused the Democrats of not being brave enough to pass immigration reform when they controlled the Congress, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi jumped up and came at the guy! Marino struck a nerve by pointing out that the Democrats owned the entire Congress and White House for two years and did nothing about illegal immigration. Nancy Pelosi then crept up on Marino and began taunting him. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it best: “What is she doing?”...

It's going from worse to worst each week in California. Suffering in its third year of drought, more than 58 percent of the state is currently in "exceptional drought" stage, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map. That marks a huge jump from just seven days ago, when about 36 percent of the state was categorized that way. Exceptional drought, the most extreme category, indicates widespread crop and pasture losses and shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells. If the state continues on this path, there may have to be thoughts about moving people out, said Lynn Wilson,...

GOOGLE TRANSLATION: WASHINGTON - The Republican legislation was approved by 223 votes in favor and 189 against on Friday night in a vote that was resolved almost according to party lines. Last minute changes supported by staunch conservatives who a day earlier had forced party leaders to pull the bill from floor debates they won. The project would increase the costs for the National Guard at the border and add immigration judges and detention facilities. Makes changes in policies so that children can be deported faster. But as the Senate and went on vacation, the project has no chance of...