Posted on 04/21/2013 8:26:16 AM PDT by AuntB
The bipartisan effort to pass immigration legislation has driven a wedge through the heart of the Tea Party — with some of the GOP’s staunchest advocates and fiercest opponents of reform hailing from the insurgent movement.
On one side, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): A Tea Party hero who was one of the movement's early success stories, Rubio is leading efforts to sell the bill to the GOP's conservative wing.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), three other Tea Party favorites, have also been closely involved in the bipartisan negotiations.
But others closely aligned with the Tea Party movement have come out — hard — against the bipartisan framework.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a member of the House Tea Party Caucus, ripped a bipartisan Senate plan as "amnesty" shortly after a “gang of eight” GOP and Democratic lawmakers unveiled it this week. Smith attack the plan as a potential drain on the economy and threat to border security.
Erick Erickson, the influential head of the Tea Party website RedState.com, also blasted the proposal.
Other members of the House Tea Party Caucus, including cofounding Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Steve King (R-Iowa), also remain hardliners on the issue.
Ali Akbar, a Republican strategist with close ties to the Tea Party movement, said he thinks that the movement’s rank-and-file is just starting to come to seriously analyze the proposal. Akbar said he personally hoped he could back new legislation as it emerged.
“I think you’ll see a new way of how activists and leaders treat this. I don’t expect a big anti-immigration rally in front of the Capitol — whether Michele Bachmann calls one or not,” he said.
Akbar said that grassroots activists are still waiting for more details, and would likely accept any plan that House conservatives who have been involved in the private deliberations support.
He singled out Labrador, Ryan, and Reps. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as members with strong standing within the movement, who could swing Tea Party grassroots one way or the other.
“There’s going to be a little resistance and there will be people who won’t come along,” he said. “But you won’t see the mobilization you saw in 2007 (against immigration reform) and it’s certainly not going to come from the core Tea Party groups.”
He added: “And as they come to learn more about the policy, and House folks are briefing the Tea Party leaders, folks will come aboard.”
Erickson’s blog post against the proposal — and Rubio’s response — underscored the internal tensions within the movement on the issue.
“I don’t like Marco Rubio’s plan. There, I said it,” Erickson wrote before saying he’d struggled long and hard about coming out against the proposal because of Rubio’s support.
“The GOP was smart to put Marco Rubio as the face of the plan because many of us like him personally, support him still, and consequently don’t want to seem critical.
But the plan makes the actual problem of immigration more difficult to solve,” he continued.
Erickson said the plan was “clearly written by a group of men who seemingly love government, but do not love free markets, small businesses, or individuals.”
Rubio, who has hit nearly every conservative media outlet to explain his support for the plan, argued in a response that immigration reform is politically necessary for the GOP.
That’s because the immigration debate has impaired the conservative movement’s “ability to convince these fast-growing communities that the principles of limited government and free enterprise are better for them than big government and collectivism,” he wrote on RedState.com.
Rubio stressed the negative economic ramifications of maintaining the current system, before addressing Erickson’s specific concerns with the Senate plan.
One new argument from conservatives against immigration reform seems tailored directly to Tea Party audiences: That if undocumented immigrants are allowed to as permanent residents or citizens, it will drive up the federal debt and be a drag on the economy.
Smith, a member of the House Tea Party Caucus and a prominent border hawk, argued as much earlier this week.
“My real concern with this plan is quite frankly it's going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars because they're going to have to foot the bill for government benefits going to these individuals,” he said.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who authored the controversial Arizona immigration law, laid out a similar argument.
“I really believe the biggest barrier for this bill is going to be the price tag,” he told The Hill.
“In 2007, the amnesty then was calculated to be a $2.6 trillion net cost, as you make illegal aliens eligible for welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. That was $2.6 trillion over 10 years — and that was before ObamaCare,” Kobach said. “If Congress really cares about the fiscal gap, why would we widen it further at this time when our nation's fiscal house is not in order? The number this year will be even bigger.”
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant disagrees.
“The bipartisan Senate principles explicitly state that illegal immigrants who are given legal status will not qualify for any federal benefits, including ObamaCare. The White House conceded that point in the principles they released on Tuesday,” Conant told The Hill. “This debate is over: No benefits for illegals.”
Labrador, another Tea Party favorite who has been closely involved in seeking bipartisan solutions on the issue, told The Hill recently that he saw part of his role in the debate as reaching out to other Tea Party members.
“Politically, some of the more moderate members use immigration as the only issue they can be conservative on, and I just think that's not good policy,” he said.
“I went through this in my primary and general [election] in Idaho. Some groups were accusing me of not being conservative enough, and I asked them if they believed being conservative is wanting to reform government and make it accountable, and fix a government that isn't working. And when I explained it that way — argued for more efficient, accountable, and transparent government — a lot of them came around.”
Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist with ties to the Tea Party who has also long advocated immigration reform, warned that anti-reform voices could find resonance by tying the issue to the federal debt.
“As soon as you say, ‘You’re going to put more on the credit card,’ that’s a top issue for them … The fiscal aspect is huge for a lot of these activists and House members,” he said.
But O’Connell believes his side has the right messengers — and that so far they’re using the right message
“Finding that right balance to convince people this won’t be an economic loss or drag on the economy long-term is going to be key,” he said.
“As long as the Labradors and Rubios keep hitting the right notes on the humanitarian, border security and economic issues, it’s going to be easier to ignore the hardliners on this.”
What say you, GRASSROOTS Tea Partiers, Do YOU support the Gang of 8 Amnesty??
Another article relevant to this one :How the Tea Party is Influencing Republicans on Immigration Reform (should be how the tea party was hijacked to make it appear to support AMNESTY!)
http://www.policymic.com/articles/26559/how-the-tea-party-is-influencing-republicans-on-immigration-reform
do they not realize how much 40 million disloyal foreigners on the dole would cost the taxpayers?
And do not our so called Conservative Congress Men and Women know the TERM: Chain Migration? Which allows new citizens to sponsor all their blood relatives - which usually turns out to be everyone they know back home..
Their argument that these amnestied illegals will not be able to collect benefits doesn’t hold water. Every single one of their American born children are/will be eligible. Chain migration will create even more American born children collecting benefits.
No, he's for real. He appears to be part of the movement of hijacked tea party labels by lobbyists...TPNN and teaparty.net, who promotes Grover Norquist and CPAC and AMNESTY, as nearly as I can tell. The other day I read something interesting about the guy and am looking for it now.
http://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/341863/tea-party-news-network-raising-wifi-cpac-greg-pollowitz
[snip]I’m proud to see a major blog like TPNN step up to benefit the movement as whole,” said Ali A. Akbar, President of the National Bloggers Club.
Let’s, for a test, first cut off all welfare and public health services to illegals and see how that works!
First off .. the big lie that there are 11 million illegals began seven years ago... There were closer to 20 million then. But just leave it at 20 million. Each new illegal alien citizen (several years down the road they say - yeah sure if a Court does not decide to overule the quasi-status given them) - anyway each new citizen gets to sponsor relatives in the old country for citizenship. At say - ONLY 4 relatives per new citizen that could easily add up to 80 million Hispanics mostly as citizens in 40 years or a lot less time. Population would swell to over 400 million - probably pushing 440 million. The historic citizens of long term American Ancestry would be facing a solid ethnic block of Hispanics totally 120-140 or more million - if we are lucky to get away with that. You young guys and gals had better start teaching your kids Spanish as their first language. And learn to Press 2 for English
I have known legal immigrants who told me that they had been able to bring over their parents and grandparents and immediately get them on Social Security, with one saying a younger uncle got on disability. Of course none had ever paid into the system.
One guy telling me that, I would have written of as B/S. More than three "ain't".
If they can somehow do this, what are the odds these Newbies will do even better because they have been playing the system for so long?
It’s not BS. Heck California even has their own old aged Social Security system for the ones that don’t qualify for the federal one. Just drag grandma across the border and she is good to go.
They will only enforce the parts that create more Democrat voters.
Borders...Language...Culture...wash rinse repeat...!
Have you ever heard this rumor??? There are several pages on the search engine with this noted. No wonder Akbar is a Grover Norquist follower. Norquist and Rove are always on the same page.
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2012/06/karl-roves-bisexual-affair-might-have.html
Karl Rove’s rumored “lover” Ali Akbar
What sort of demented mind considers Jeff Flake a “Tea Party favorite”.
THe problem is this...the tea party label has been hijacked for fundraising by k st. lobbyists (all for amnesty) and their operatives, like
ALI AKBAR. CONVICTED FELON
The TEA PARTY needs an enema to flush out the scum that has tried to take it over.
This is a leftie website, but they are the only ones picking up this kind of info. which looks correct so far.
National Bloggers Club Founder Ali Akbar: Convicted Felon
[snip]A recent investigation by BU into Ali A. Akbar of The National Bloggers Club has revealed that he had been convicted in 2007 on charges of Credit Card Fraud and Theft 1500.00-20,000.00. It is interesting to note that Mr. Ali Akbar presents himself as a money man or political operative for the right wing conservative movement. Yet, as he blogs or tweets incessantly about the conviction of Brett Kimberlin, he himself has been convicted of Theft of Property and Credit Card Fraud back in 2007 in Fort Worth Texas.
http://www.breitbartunmasked.com/rogues-gallery/national-bloggers-club-founder-ali-akbar-convicted-felon/
“What sort of demented mind considers Jeff Flake a “Tea Party favorite”.
That’s what the amnesty pushers want you to think. They want us to think the Tea party supports the gang of 8 amnesty. It’s propaganda used against us by ‘our own side’.
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.