REP. HUNTER HOLDS NEWS CONFERENCE ON IMMIGRATION ISSUES

HUNTER: And if it should make it through the U.S. Senate, once again, the people's house, the House of Representatives, hopefully will stop this bill.

QUESTION: I have a question on the funding, this $4.4 billion, the Kyl-Graham amendment that funds security at the border by using fines and fees gathered by illegals inside the country. Is that -- do you think that's maybe fuzzy math or...

HUNTER: Well, first I think it is fuzzy math because it obviously doesn't -- it obviously would not cover the cost of enforcing the border. But secondly, what those fees really are is amnesty fees. Those are the fees that are going to be extracted in the Senate bill from people who came in illegally who would be legalized, and they're legalization fees, for practical purposes. They're the fines that they pay and the processing fees that they pay as they go through the legalization or the amnesty process. We should not trade amnesty for border security. That shouldn't -- giving amnesty should not be a condition for border security. The American people have a right to have border security. They have a right to know who's coming into this country. They have a right to know that when people come in, they have to knock on their front door and they have to let us know who they are and what they're bringing with them. And the idea that we're not going to have a secure border unless we extract money from illegal aliens is not a valid position. And so that's my reaction to this statement that came from the White House where the president was reported, by Tony Snow, as being in support of this amendment that will pay for border security with money extracted from illegal aliens who are processing for amnesty.

QUESTION: Well, do you even think that it's possible to get 60 percent of these 12 million illegals to pay $500 to $1,000. If we don't even know where they are...

HUNTER: First, I think all -- I think it's highly unlikely. But secondly, I think that we don't -- from my perspective, it's not necessary to go to that -- to go to the point where we're trying to figure out what the math is on this thing, because the whole idea of extracting money from illegal aliens to have border security, the implication of which is we're not going to have border security unless illegal aliens pay for it, is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for the American people. We have a right, and the American people have a right, to have secure borders. That's the obligation of the federal government. There's no state that can do that. There's no individual who can do it. That's the obligation of the federal government.

And just as we are now developing port security -- that is, we're securing security at all the ports where American ships come in, we've developed airport security where aircraft come in from points external to the United States -- the American people have a right to have border security, so that the 2,000-mile southern border of the U.S. and the northern border of the U.S. are appropriately secured.

And that shouldn't be conditioned on anything. It shouldn't be conditioned on illegal aliens bringing in enough money to provide security.

So this -- and from my perspective, that's a non-starter. We need to secure the border. That means we need to build the border fence. And according to the Appropriations Committee yesterday, there's $864 million cash on hand in the Department of Homeland Security right now for building the border fence. Now, in seven months since the president signed this bill -- that's October 26 -- they've only built, according to the schedule we got yesterday, 13 miles of a single layer of this double fence. That means it's going to be more than 20 years to build the border fence. And that's not right.

And incidentally, the House and Senate passed -- at my urging and the urging of a number of other members -- we passed an empowerment to the Department of Homeland Security to waive every existing statute and regulation that would -- that the border fence construction would come into contact with so that we can get the -- we don't have to wait for years of environmental lawsuits.

We can simply waive those statutes and legislation with respect to the environment and we can build the border fence. That's how important this was to the Senate and the House. They were willing to push aside all regulations and get this thing built.

HUNTER: You may be understanding now why the fence hasn't been built yet. You now have the White House basically saying, "We'll make a deal with you. If you pass the amnesty bill, we'll actually put enough money up against border enforcement that we can complete the fence."

The president's already signed the bill that mandates 854 miles of border fence. We've got almost $1 billion, cash on hand, right now to build that fence and they've only built a paltry 13 miles in seven months. Now, you've got individual ranchers in this country who have built more fence than the entire government of the United States of America.

HUNTER: So it shows that the administration is not interested in expeditious construction of that fence. They should be interested in expeditious construction of thefence.

You know we have 250,000 criminal aliens right now in federal, state and local penitentiaries and jails. Lots of criminals are moving back and forth across that international border, hurting Americans, damaging property. And the idea that the administration refuses to build a border fence unless they get some kind of a pay-off for it -- and the pay-off here is the amnesty bill -- that's not acceptable.

HUNTER: I think one of the -- I'm trying to read between the lines. Because it's not explainable, why, when you have a border crisis and you have criminals coming across the border every day, narcotics coming across the border every day, thousands of people coming across the border illegally, why wouldn't you secure the border, especially when we had the law passed in October and the president signed the law October 26th? Why would they have built so little fence at this point? This is the government of the United States of America. They've built less fence than individual ranchers in this country have built in the same period of time.

Now, one school of thought is that they wanted to hold up on that so they could pair it up with the amnesty bill and march the two forth together, so that conservatives would accept the amnesty bill on the basis that they were getting the fence.

We already have a fence (bill). The American people spoke. The House of Representatives passed it overwhelmingly. The Senate passed it 80 to 19. If the Senate's looking for something they can agree on, this was one of them. They passed the fence 80 to 19. And the president signed it October 26th.

Let's build that border fence, and let's get it done, again, while we're all still young.

QUESTION: You say that's one school of thought. Is that your school of thought, the fence is being held hostage...

HUNTER: Well, I think that's indicated. I think the -- obviously, that's not just a guess at this point. Essentially, if what Tony Snow says is accurate, that the president's willing to support an amendment that will do what it takes to enforce the border out of the fines and the fees from amnesty processing, that pretty expressly links the two. Unless you get money from people who are being processed to have amnesty, you're not going to have any money to enforce the border. We should enforce the border, no matter what happens.

That shouldn't be a condition, or something that the president may or may not give us, depending on what kind of a bill the Senate comes up with.

HUNTER: He signed a bill that mandates -- it doesn't suggest --it mandates the construction of the border fence. I wrote that bill. And we should build that fence. And when we built it in San Diego, we saw the crime rate drop precipitously in the city of San Diego, according to FBI statistics.

Right now, you have thousands of people coming across that border who are criminals, lots of people who come across with folks that want to get jobs. That pool of individuals coming across the border every month includes lots of people who come across not to get jobs but to hurt Americans.

And right now we have in federal penitentiaries 250,000 -- federal penitentiaries and local jails and prisons -- 250,000 criminal aliens -- that is, people who came in illegally to this country and have hurt people to the point where they've been convicted and sent to prison.

Some of those people their countries won't even take back, like MS-13 gang members, because they're so brutal. So the idea that we're going to leave this border open until the president gets his amnesty bill is not acceptable. We should enforce the border no matter what. We should do it right now. And we should enforce the border first.

QUESTION: So there's nothing more the president can offer in this negotiation to get you to support comprehensive immigration reform?

My point is, that's not a valid exchange. The idea that the administration's saying, "We'll enforce existing law if you'll give us amnesty," that's not a reasonable offer. You always enforce existing law.

When a law's been passed by the House and the Senate and the president's signed it, it's the law. We should enforce it.

QUESTION: Seems like a pretty serious charge, if you're saying that the president's kind of using the border fence as a bargaining chip in order to...

HUNTER: Well, I think that's clearly -- that's clearly the intent of the amendment. If I read it correctly, this is a Graham amendment which says, "We're going to enforce the border with $4.4 billion that we pull from the amnesty processing." Well, what that -- that obviously presupposes that if you don't have any amnesty, there's not going to be any $4.4 billion.

My point is, you have to enforce the border. You have an obligation to do that. We pass lots of appropriations bills in this House and Senate that we send to the president's desk. No member has given any indication, at least that I've seen -- no body of members -- that they will somehow starve the enforcement process. Everybody wants to see enforcement on the border.

Think of what the House and Senate did here. This is probably the only area of law in the United States where the House and Senate have waived environmental regulations, basically said, "We're tired of the lawsuits. Build the border fence."

We gave to the Department of Homeland Security the empowerment to just sweep aside all regulations that would stop this fence from being built. You had liberals and conservatives make that vote. You had people that care deeply about the environment make that vote because they think border security is so important.

So the idea now that we're now going to get enough money for border security out of the processing money from illegal aliens is just not acceptable.

HUNTER: We've got a few down there. Yes, we had the president send initially 6,000 down there, not in an enforcement capacity as you know. But there are some down there who have helped to -- are helping in what I would call peripheral duties to assist the border agencies.

HUNTER: I don't want to give you an exact number unless I've got it, so we'll try to get that for you, how many troops are still there.

Ah...something else. Many Libertarians tend to get into other parties and their discussions. This is a little off of our discussion about the LP, but it is very interesting, nonetheless.

From Libertarian Republican

Fred Thompson: Pro-Choice Republican
by Eric Dondero

On Abortion: "Government should stay out of it... The ultimate decision must be made by the women... Government should treat its citizens as adults capable of making moral decisions on their own." -- Fred Thompson, July 1994

It's amazing that all of a sudden we're seeing all these Social Conservatives rallying to Fred Thompson as the "Savior" of the GOP. The Social Cons have never fully trusted Rudy Giuliani. All it took was one small misstep by Giuliani the other day on abortion, for them to bail. Now the Blogosphere is loaded with "Run Fred, Run!" articles and posts.

Are the Social Cons ignorant of Thompson's background?

Fred Thompson has always been a solid Pro-Choice Republican.

Back in the early to mid-1990s, there was a raging battle in the Republican Party between the Moderates/Libertarians versus the Religious Right. On one side there was Ann Stone's Republicans For Choice, the Ripon Society, Log Cabin Clubs and the organization that I had founded in 1990 - the Republican Liberty Caucus. On the other side was the Religious Right. The fight was particularly bitter in Southern States like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas. I can remember setting up Pro-Choice Republican booths at YR Conventions in NC, LA, and GA, and being verbally assaulted by the RR. In some states they even tried to ban me from the conventions.

Tennessee was right smack dab in the middle of it all. The battle was particularly vicious in that State.

The leader of the TN Anti-Religious Right forces at the time was Michael McCloskey. He was a very well-respected Republican activist from the Eastern side of the State. McCloskey was particularly adept at politics. He was articulate, smooth, and quite handsome. Plus, he was well-funded. The RR feared him, immensly.

Needless to say, we in the RLC, linked up with McCloskey pretty quickly when we started organizing our Chapter in the State. Even though he was more of a straight out Moderate Republican we elected him to our National Committee.

McCloskey hosted our National Convention that year in Gatlinburg (near Knoxville). He used the event to gain attention for his anti-Religious Right efforts in the State. And he very cleverly invited a great many prominent Tennessee Republicans (mostly YRs) to attend. National Speakers who attended included Ann Stone, Rich Taefel of the Log Cabin Republicans (Gay & Lesbian GOPers), and Republicans for Marijuana Legalization.

During the same time, Fred Thompson was making noises of running for the US Senate. McCloskey was one of the ones who was influential in recruiting him to run. McCloskey saw him as a Celebrity counter-force to the Religious Right/Pro-Lifers that could win the GOP Nomination.

And the Religious Right, predictably came after Thompson. It was a bitterly fought primary. Thompson's opponent was Religious Rightist John Bakkes. In the end, Thompson's celebrity status carried him through, and he won with 62% to Bakkes's 37%. Many credited McCloskey and his "Young Republican brigades" with helping Thompson's win.

Young Republican Andrew Murphey of E. Memphis was our State RLC Chairman at the time. Murphey worked on Thompson's Senate Campaign. McCloskey got him the job.

In July of 1994, Murphey did an interview with Thompson for Republican Liberty (the official newsletter of the RLC).

In the interview Thompson identified himself as a "Goldwater Republican." At the time being associated with Goldwater, who had just badmouthed Jerry Falwell and was on the outs with the Religious Right, was a codeword for "Moderate/Pro-Choice" or "Libertarian" Republican.

Thompson said in the interview that like Goldwater he was a strong supporter of Middle Class Tax Cuts, Term Limits, School Choice and a Strong Military.

But it was his answer on Abortion that came through loud and clear:

Murphey:

Some conservatives got flustered by your comments on abortion and Roe vs. Wade. Would you like to explain your position on abortion?

Thompson:

Government should stay out of it. No public financing. The ultimate decision must be made by the women. Government should treat its citizens as adults capable of making moral decisions on their own.

The perfect libertarian position.

For us libertarian Republicans it was right-on. But it's only a tiny bit better than Rudy Giuliani's current position. With Giuliani's very recent clarification, only yesterday distancing himself from government funding, the difference is even less if not entirely non-existent.

I'm a big Rudy guy. But if Fred's the Nominee, I'll be perfectly happy. Cause I know that in reality, he's a Pro-Choice Republican.

So either way we libertarian Republicans win. Rudy or Fred: It's the Social Cons, who will have to accept our Pro-Choice Republican candidate for once.

Ironic that their once bitter enemy Fred Thompson is now their Number One Choice of a Standard-bearer. I dare say that alone is a Major Victory for us libertarian Republicans.

*Note - Eric Dondero is the Founder of the Republican Liberty Caucus, and served as the RLC's first National Chairman from 1990-93. He also served as Senior Aide to US Congressman Ron Paul from 1997-2003. He is currently CEO of MainstreamLibertarian.com which covers news of the libertarian Republican movement on a daily basis.

“Why is Hunter NOT doing any better in th polling? He is right on target on any of the issues that I’ve read anything about him on.
Instead we get spoon fed Gulianni and McCain in large doses daily by the “talking heads”.”

I can give you my opinion. The MSM has ignored, for example, both Tancredo and Hunter, choosing instead to ‘promote’ Guiliani , McCain, Romney and the others precisely because of the differences in their positions on THIS issue.

Since the day the illegal aliens took to the streets, the media coverage (”talking heads”) has been slanted, imo, heavily in favor of the illegals. Who’s message, other than Tancredo and Hunter, is more specifically detailed, clearly made and polar opposite of the media’s? and so, to be intentionally ignored, out of ‘sight’ from the public. What irritates me more is that doing so conveniently facilitates the “Duncan Who” and “he can’t win” rehetoric that we see even here.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.