Free Republic

A hot microphone caught Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) coordinating which way members of the “Gang of Eight” who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee would vote on immigration bill amendments, Breitbart News has learned. “Do our Republicans have a pass on this one if they want?” the microphone caught Schumer saying.

Democratic and Republican members of the Gang of Eight split Monday over a proposal to block millions of immigrants from receiving earned income tax credits, a major cash assistance program. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) broke with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) over the issue of giving federal payments to illegal immigrants who would receive temporary legal status under the legislation. Graham and Flake supported an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to deny earned income tax credits (EITC) to people with Registered Provisional Immigrant Status (RPI). An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants...

You’ll find the information needed to attend today’s anti-SAFE Act rally in the activism tab-in our latest update-but an equally important date is right around the corner. Remember 1986-an exceptional organization created to prevent history from repeating itself-is holding a nationwide press event this coming Tuesday! The public event in Arizona-the state whose courageous example inspired the creation of American Rattlesnake-is merely one of many being held around the country to echo the sentiments of millions of Americans who refuse to accept the imposition of another legislative amnesty by an unaccountable Congress and White House. Florida will be holding a...

Politico is discussing the prospects of Barack Obama's remaining agenda in light of the trifecta of scandals exploding around him. While the authors of the piece, Jake Sherman, Ginger Gibson and Seung Min Kim speculate that various of the items on the President's 'to-do list' are to one degree or another, in jeapordy - they seem to see a Silver lining for 'Immigration Reform amidst all the general gloom. But the scandal trifecta — including Benghazi, the IRS probe of conservative groups and the Justice Department’s seizure of reporters’ records — presents a new challenge for the House GOP: how...

Two radically different theories are raging across the conservative movement about amnesty for illegal aliens and its effect on our economy. How could the same movement grounded on the same conceptual principles come to two totally different conclusions? I was honored to interview Derrick Morgan, Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, on May 8 as a co-host of the Conservative Commandos radio show. I asked Derrick Morgan these questions, and the Heritage vice president made the entire issue crystal-clear. So, would immigration reform under the "Gang of Eight's" proposal cause our economy to expand, increase wages for everyone, and more...

The night before Thursday's marathon committee markup, members of the Senate's Gang of Eight and their staffs huddled in a room in the Capitol to decide what amendments to their immigration bill they would let live—and what must die. As a comprehensive immigration overhaul advances through the Senate, its chief architects will remain firmly in control of its fate. This week's drama at the Senate Judiciary Committee provided a valuable test run for the group, which must protect their bill from changes that undermine the principles they agreed on but accept enough suggestions from their colleagues to garner at least...

TWENTY YEARS ago the leaders of Europe agreed on a bold step: a new currency called the euro. They promised that the euro would improve life for everybody—and denounced all opposition as ignorant, xenophobic, and backward. Their words gained extra plausibility because many of the opponents of the euro really were ignorant, xenophobic, and backward. Yet the backward critics were right, and the enlightened proponents were wrong. And so it is with the immigration debate in the United States. Nothing unifies the American elite like immigration. From Barack Obama to Paul Ryan, from the editorial board of The New York...

The purpose of last Wednesday’s events, like the marches and rallies staged on Cinco de Mayo, was to pressure elected officials in Washington D.C. into repeating the same disastrous mistakes of the past. In this case, a wholesale amnesty which would cost upwards of six trillion dollars in the coming decades. While most of the people gathered in Union Square were open borders advocates of one sort or another, there was a spirited contingent of counter-protestors from New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, a.k.a. NY ICE, whom I’ll get to in due time. There were several journalists eager to...

American Action Network is pimping Marco Rubio and amnesty. They spent $300,000 television advertising campaign to “end de facto amnesty.” The ad will only run on Fox News. Of course, the amnesty bill supported by Rubio, McCain, Lindsey Graham and Democrat is de facto amnesty. Of course American Action Network doesn’t want you to believe that. They tout Marco Rubio in an ad called ‘disaster’ ad that’s been on (especially on Hannity) the last few days. Watch out for American Action Network. They may try and appear to be conservative, but they are nothing more than a progressive action group....

Economic fallacies are being hurled at the Heritage Foundation to attack its study of amnesty for illegal immigrants. On May 6, Heritage released its study calculating a $6.3 trillion price tag for the “Gang of Eight” proposal. Amnesty promoters recall that a similar study by Heritage blocked amnesty in 2007. To implement the Gang of Eight’s “Muriel Boat Lift, The Sequel” amnesty advocates seek to discredit the study. So they accuse Heritage of ignoring the expansion of the U.S. economy that amnesty will cause. Therefore, they say, Heritage over-states the true cost of amnesty at $6.3 trillion. They offer no...

Calculating the Cost of Amnesty By The Editors The Heritage Foundation has undertaken to back a plausible theory with numbers. The theory is that the amnesty contained in the immigration bill before Congress will cost taxpayers plenty; it is plausible because we have a large redistributive state, and many of the illegal immigrants to whom this bill will grant legal status — and the relatives their legal status will allow them to bring here — will be net recipients of government benefits.

Cesar Conda is Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff. He recently made his Tweets private (protected) so the general public can’t read them. Cesar Conda has been pushing amnesty for illegals on Twitter and else as Marco Rubio’s PR agent. Conda, who is an immigration lawyer, went to work for George Soros before becoming Rubio’s Chief of Staff. Cesar Conda worked on the editorial advisory board of George Soros magazine, The International Economy Magazine. Cesar Conda had been spinning lies about the amnesty bill about how illegal wouldn’t get welfare, wait more than 10 years for citizenship, etc. Those lies have...

The Center for American Progress says the Senate’s pending immigration bill will help legalize 32.5 million migrants over the next 10 years. The estimate is only slightly less than the initial 33.5 million estimate prepared by NumbersUSA, which opposes the bill. Both groups produced similar estimates, but couched them very differently, for very different political purposes. The NumbersUSA group said their estimates were cautious, while the Center for American Progress (CAP) group said their April 30 study shows the Senate bill will actually reduce the current inflow of immigrants. Their similar estimates match the May 3 prediction of a 32.7...

In an op-ed in the May 3 Wall Street Journal, Senator Marco Rubio explained that the Gang of Eight immigration bill will be amended as it goes through the Senate in the coming weeks, and that (perhaps unlike some others in the gang) he welcomes this process. He wrote: Since my colleagues and I introduced immigration legislation, intense public scrutiny has helped identify shortcomings and unintended consequences that need to be addressed. Many concerned citizens have gone a step further and offered specific ideas to improve it. This kind of constructive criticism is a positive force that should always...

A Washington group is criticizing the Senate immigration bill because it allows for up to $150 million for organizations to advertise citizenship opportunities and to help illegal immigrants sign up to become citizens. The nonpartisan Center for Immigration Services calls the money “slush funds” and earlier this week cited several concerns -- particularly that the money can go to the same groups that helped craft the legislation and that the spending appears to have no cap or oversight. “It’s virtually a blank check,” Jon Feere, a Center for Immigration Services legal policy analyst, told FoxNews.com. “And the groups that helped...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions estimates about 57 million new people, immigrants and people with nonimmigrant visas, will be entering the United States to compete with middle class Americans for their jobs if the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill passes. Sessions’ staff released an analysis detailing how they reached that number on Friday morning. “This is a number that exceeds the population of the state of California, our largest state,” Sessions said on a conference call with reporters discussing the analysis. “It’s a very, very significant impact on our economy and the American people.” Sessions argued that...

The latest version of the Senate immigration bill still repeals E-Verify but keeps it operational in the meantime so businesses in states that require its use can keep using it over the next five years. That change is part of a new 350-page amendment filed late Tuesday by the “Gang of Eight” senators who wrote the bill, which now runs to 867 pages and covers everything from legalizing illegal immigrants to boosting border security to rewriting the legal immigration system. “We have made some technical fixes and clarifying edits to the legislative language, but that’s it. This is a routine...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Boston’s conservative radio host Howie Carr on Wednesday that the political momentum is starting to turn against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. When Carr asked the senator if this process behind the push for this bill is the “same thing as Obamacare” where “we have to pass it so we can read it,” Sessions replied: “Absolutely, it really is.” “That is exactly what it is,” Sessions said. “They’re selling the sizzle. They’re selling the smell. And it’s a shoe leather instead of a steak.” Carr said that though everyone...

As harsh as that variation on a theme might sound, it is more disturbing still that this has become one of the primary policy devices of the American left to advance their political agenda. Most know the famous admission by Rahm Emanuel regarding a good crisis, but few of us can confess to the foresight to predict just how cravenly this overt policy of exploitation would come to be implemented. That it has been practiced at the expense of the populace and the security of our country is a fact, but the truth remains too distasteful for some to fully...

Sen. Lindsey Graham predicts 70 votes for the 'Gang of Eight' bill with Marco Rubio on board.It is rare in Washington for the trend lines on a controversial issue to come together as favorably as they have for immigration reform. Public support is roughly around 70%, according to various polls, with Gallup having it at 72%. Senate Republicans blocked an overhaul of immigration laws in 2007 but now a substantial bloc of Republicans, alarmed by the GOP's shrunken share of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election, are eager to enact "comprehensive" reform legislation. For their part, Hispanic groups recognize...