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… While Trump and other GOP presidential candidates push for a giant wall between the United States and Mexico, San Diego is literally building a bridge. In December, an international group of developers, which includes real estate magnate Sam Zell, plans to open a pedestrian walkway that bypasses the regular U.S. border crossings and directly connects San Diego to Tijuana’s international airport. Meanwhile, all five members of San Diego’s congressional delegation, including stalwart Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter, have successfully advocated for the $500 million in additional funds needed to expand the main border crossing. And the city’s...

“You told me you were in favor of an eventual path to citizenship,” Todd said, according to NBC’s transcript of the program. “Well, legal status is what I was talking about,” said Ryan.

In this modern-day 24/7 news cycle it is very easy to overreact to events and attribute far too much significance to stories which will seem, in retrospect, like nothing more than random data points. I do not believe that is the case with the sudden withdrawal of Scott Walker from the presidential race. Instead, it is my belief that this event -- and, specifically, why it happened the way that it did -- is a seminal moment in the history of the conservative movement, the media, and even our country. Let me first say that, while Walker was my choice...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says he cannot fathom how real estate magnate Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are dominating the GOP presidential primaries. Graham provided cutting assessments of their lack of political experience, foreign policies and overall temperaments during a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday. “On our side, you’ve got the No. 2 guy [who] tried to kill someone at 14, and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?” he said.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called his rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, weak on immigration, but Rubio isn't much impressed with Trump's plan to deport all illegal immgrants, then allow those back in who don't have criminal backgrounds. "If you think about where he was six months ago, it's nothing like what he's saying now," Rubio said on CNN's "State of the Union." "Even what he's saying now borders on the absurd. He's going to deport all these people and allow back in the ones that are good. His plan makes no sense." Asked whether he agrees with former...

A battle over “sanctuary cities” is dividing Senate Republicans. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has teed up legislation that would crack down on cities that don't comply with federal immigration law. But its unclear whether the bill can get through the Senate — and not just because of opposition from Democrats. In addition to limiting federal money for sanctuary cities, Sen. David Vitter's (R-La.) bill would increase the amount of prison time an undocumented immigrant could serve if they re-enter the United States after having previously been deported. Conservatives like his plan, but it has drawn opposition from Sens. Jeff...

Former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, after speaking with Representative Paul Ryan about the race for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said on Friday that Ryan was a "man of ideas." "I wouldn't presume to tell Paul what to do, but I do know that he is a man of ideas who is driven to see them applied for the public good," Romney said in a statement provided to Reuters after he spoke by telephone with Ryan, who is being urged to run for the top House post.

Rep. Renee Ellmers stood up in a private meeting of Republican lawmakers on Friday and thanked them for their "prayers and support" after they received “nasty emails” accusing her of having an extramarital affair with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, according to multiple sources in the room. She did not mention McCarthy (R-Calif.) by name, detail the content of the emails or provide any other information. Sources close to Ellmers and McCarthy say the accusation is unfounded, and assert that it is being spread by a discredited troublemaker. McCarthy has publicly denied that any personal problems were behind his stunning...

McALLEN, Tex. — At the Republican debate Wednesday and throughout the campaign, candidates led by Donald J. Trump have assailed illegal immigration, and some have questioned whether children who are born to immigrants in this country illegally should be considered American citizens. But here on the Texas border some communities are engaged in activities that go beyond talk, enforcing some of the toughest rules in the country limiting the types of ID parents can show to receive copies of birth certificates. The result has been a refusal to issue birth certificates to many of the Texas-born children of immigrants here...

Des Moines (United States) (AFP) - President Barack Obama called anti-immigrant sentiment in Republicans' presidential campaign discourse "un-American", appearing without naming names, to be condemning the incendiary rhetoric of frontrunner Donald Trump. "This whole anti-immigrant sentiment that's out there in our politics right now is contrary to who we are," Obama said during a town hall meeting at an Iowa high school. "Because unless you are a Native American, your family came from some place else." .. SNIP .. Without naming Trump or his rivals, Obama denounced that on Monday. "We can have a legitimate debate about how to set...

The “Terror Threat Snapshot” for August 2015, released by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, states the terror threat level in America is high and “getting steadily worse,” and that there have been “more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”The “Terror Threat Snapshot” also reported that the Islamic State “is fueling the Islamist terror” globally; that Islamist terrorists “are intent on killing law enforcement” officers and U.S. troops, as well as civilians; and that 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State.In...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is defending his use of Spanish on the campaign trail, calling Donald Trump’s criticism of him a “joke” that made him laugh. “I laughed. I mean this is a joke,” Bush said when asked by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos about his response to Trump’s attack. “Part of it is, you laugh, because it’s so bizarre but it’s hurtful for a lot of people and Mr. Trump know there is. He’s appealing to their angst and fears rather than higher hopes.” In an interview with Breitbart News, Trump chided Bush for speaking Spanish to attack...

Republican Presidential Candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush told a group at a Florida rally about his Texas border trip and explained why a border wall wouldn’t be practical or conservative. Bush returned to the friendly turf of the Sunshine State on Wednesday, with a town hall style meeting in Pensacola. Pensacola is a solidly conservative town in the Florida panhandle. He spoke of his experience as the state’s former governor, but only answered a single question about the Border Crisis. “I went to McAllen, Texas, in Hildago County, last week and met with the Mayors, the County Judge,...

Tuesday on CNN’s “At This Hour” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s calls for the deportation of the 11 million illegal immigrants and their American citizen children is “Joseph McCarthy-like” and “illegal” and he added, “he’s a complete idiot when it comes to Middle East Policy” so if he is the nominee the GOP will “lose, and we should lose.” Graham said, “Well, I think Donald Trump’s pretty much an idiot on policy and Jeb Bush is a good man. What Jeb was talking about is birth right tourism. Millionaires from China and other...

Glenn Beck will not support Donald Trump if he wins the GOP presidential nomination. In a Monday evening interview on CNN, the radio personality also said he preferred Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) –who was the face of the Gang of Eight’s massive comprehensive amnesty bill–over Trump and even mocked Trump for having a “special place” to keep all of the Bibles that people send him. Host Don Lemon asked Beck, “If Donald Trump is the nominee, will you support him?” Beck, who over the weekend declared on left-leaning NPR that Trump was not a conservative, replied, “No.”

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he stands by his outspoken criticism of fellow candidate and reality show star Donald Trump because he is worried about the country succumbing to an obsession with celebrity over substance. "My fear ... is that there are countries that do succumb to celebrity... often in the developing world, celebrities and very wealthy people will win," said Paul during a 22-minute pre-taped interview posted on the web site of NBC's "Meet the Press." "I worry about the country because I don't believe that there's any sincerity to what [Trump's] message is." "And even...

Monday in Texas at the U.S.–Mexico border, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush criticized front-runner Donald Trump’s “unrealistic” immigration plan. Bush said, “The proposal made by another candidate of building a fence based on the common sense practices that are being applied here doesn’t work. You have to have a deeper strategy than just building a fence.”

Having been knocked from his front-runner perch, a fiery Jeb Bush lashed out at Republican rival Donald Trump on Thursday as the former Florida governor fights to energize his stalled campaign and stop the billionaire businessman’s summer surge. Bush’s name recognition and money—see his recent $100 million-plus fundraising haul—have kept him near the top of the Republican pack, where he has saved his most aggressive criticism for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton for much of the year. Now slipping in the polls, Bush abruptly changed course over the last 24 hours, following some Republican competitors who acknowledge Trump has become a...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Monday night dismissed as impractical Donald Trump's proposals to erect a U.S.-Mexico border wall, use remittances to pay for its construction and to revoke birthright citizenship. "How do you revoke remittances?" he asked shaking his head. "A plan needs to be grounded in reality." "I like my plan," he added in a one-on-one interview with The Washington Post. The former Florida governor has written and said more about comprehensive immigration reform than any other presidential candidate of either party. A 300-page book he published in 2013 outlines in minute detail how...

DERRY, N.H. – It was the last question at Gov. John R. Kasich’s town-hall-style meeting here on Wednesday, and it also was perhaps the bluntest. “Governor Kasich, how do you feel about amnesty for the illegals?” asked a voter near the back of a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall here. Mr. Kasich, an Ohio Republican, started off sounding like a border hawk, saying he wanted to “finish the wall” along the border with Mexico. But when he answered the question at hand, he sounded a far more pragmatic note. “If they’ve been law-abiding, then I think they should stay,” he...