Boehner: Amnesty After GOP Primary Filing Deadlines
A new report from the Texas-based Quorum Report, published by longtime Texas journalist Harvey Kronberg, says that House Speaker John Boehner plans to push amnesty legislation through the House, after the primary filing deadline for candidates. The move would prevent Tea Party from challenging GOP lawmakers who support amnesty in 2014.
Scott Braddock reported on Tuesday that “in
recent weeks, various Texas business interests have told Quorum Report
that Boehner has been telling them that he will start holding
immigration votes not long after the filing deadline has passed.”
Braddock noted that those business community
sources spoke with him “on condition of anonymity because their
conversations were held behind closed doors and they added it wasn’t
made clear to them just how confidential the information was meant to
be.”
“Nevertheless, what was made clear was that
Boehner felt the need to protect House Republican incumbents who are
otherwise seen as conservative but have expressed an openness to
immigration reform that includes a robust guest worker program,”
Braddock wrote, before citing three specific Texas GOP congressmen:
Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX), John Carter (R-TX) and Sam Johnson (R-TX).
Carter and Johnson were, until recently, members
of the House version of the “Gang of Eight.” Carter and Johnson left
the group in mid-September, stating that
President Barack Obama’s selective enforcement of immigration laws
concerns them. They felt he would selectively enforce whatever Congress
passed in any kind of immigration reform package. “The administration's
practice of hand-picking what parts of laws they wish to enforce has
irrevocably damaged our efforts of fixing our broken immigration
system,” the Texas lawmakers said in a joint statement at the time. “If
past actions are the best indicators of future behavior, we know that
any measure depending on the president's enforcement will not be
faithfully executed. It would be gravely irresponsible to further
empower this administration by granting them additional authority or
discretion with a new immigration system. The bottom line is - the
American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don't
either.”
The Texas lawmakers comprised half of the GOP
members of the negotiations, along with Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
and Raul Labrador (R-ID). Labrador also left the group, citing concerns over
the House Democratic leadership led by Nancy Pelosi, specifically their
refusal to prevent illegal aliens from getting access to Obamacare.
Poe, the third GOP congressman Braddock cited in
his story for Quorum Report, is someone who had expressed willingness
to work with activists pushing for amnesty. Traditionally in favor of
border security before any citizenship process, Poe told Fox News Latino earlier this year: “I’ve changed.”
“I used to think we had to do border security
before we ever talk about other immigration issues,” Poe said in April
2013. “But we have to do them in tandem, because [otherwise] we’ll never
get to those other issues. The border is really not secure because of
the drug cartels.”
Poe recently took a strong stance against the current versions of an immigration deal in an exclusive for Breitbart News.
"The President has proven over the last few
weeks that ‘negotiating’ means conservatives must give in and that it's
his way or no way,” Poe said in an email to Breitbart News in late
October. “In his opinion, there is no compromise, just intimidation with
inflammatory rhetoric. The President is putting his political agenda
ahead of what's best for America."
“He wants to do what's best for his legacy,” Poe
said of Obama. “Conservatives want to do what's best for our nation.”
Poe added that he thinks “there's no question that our broken
immigration system needs a lot of work.”
“That's why conservatives will still work on
individual bills, such as border security, interior enforcement,
E-verify and filling our future labor needs,” Poe explained. “Future,
temporary, foreign workers must not displace any American. Conservatives
will not support a wrapped up present with amnesty inside. Amnesty, to
quote the President, is not negotiable.”
Poe, Johnson and Carter are connected closely
with the Texas business community, which Braddock noted in the Quorum
Report story are very much in favor of amnesty.
“Though our sources for this story did not wish
to be named, it is no secret that Texas homebuilders like Perry Homes
and Weekley Homes, the Texas Association of Business, The Greater
Houston Partnership, the Texas Farm Bureau, and other business interests
find it difficult to recruit enough authorized workers and therefore
support comprehensive reform,” Braddock wrote.
This news from the Texas donor community comes as Boehner hired amnesty
advocate Rebecca Tallent as his new immigration policy adviser. “Rebecca
Tallent will join the office as Assistant to the Speaker for Policy
handling immigration issues,” Boehner’s office said in a release on
Tuesday. “Rebecca comes to us from the Bipartisan Policy Center, where
she is the director of immigration policy.”
Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel has not
responded to multiple requests for comment from Breitbart News regarding
Tallent or regarding the Quorum Report article.
Tallent previously worked for Senate “Gang of
Eight” member Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on immigration policy. She helped
him and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) draft their final immigration
proposal—one that ultimately failed.
“During her time with McCain, she helped the
Arizona Republican draft a handful of immigration overhaul measures,
including the last big push McCain made with the late Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy, D-Mass., in 2007,” Roll Call wrote of Tallent
on Tuesday. “In 2008, she was a policy adviser on McCain’s presidential
campaign. Before working for McCain, she worked for former Rep. Jim
Kolbe, R-Ariz., a longtime advocate of overhauling the immigration
system who was involved in immigration efforts before he retired in
2006.”
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