Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Conservatives, Tea Partiers Launch Coalition to Stop Immigration Reform Bill: Senate panel OKs tax-welfare benefits for newly legal immigrants.

A broad coalition of conservatives and Tea Partiers have written to members of Congress to express their strong opposition to the Senate's amnesty bill on the grounds that it does not equal true immigration reform, Breitbart News has learned.

“We write to express our serious concerns regarding the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, S. 744,” the coalition wrote to members, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Breitbart News. “We oppose this bill and urge you to vote against it when it comes to the Senate floor. No matter how well-intentioned, the Schumer-Rubio bill suffers from fundamental design flaws that make it unsalvageable.

"Many of us support various parts of the legislation, but the overall package is so unsatisfactory that the Senate would do better to start over from scratch.”

Letter signers include national conservative talk radio hosts Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Roger Hedgecock, Howie Carr, Monica Crowley, Lars Larson, Dr. Gina Loudon and more. The letter also includes conservative leaders like Red State editor Erick Erickson, Twitchy founder and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the Rev. C.L. Bryant, best-selling author David Limbaugh, the Hudson Institute’s John Fonte, John Hinderaker of Powerline.com, David Horowitz, Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mickey Kaus of The Daily Caller, Rich Lowry of the National Review, Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, Michael Needham of Heritage Action, Ginni Thomas of Liberty Consulting, conservative activist Richard Viguerie, former congressman Allen West, Hillsdale College professor Tom West, conservative women leader Phyllis Schafly, American Family Radio host Sandy Rios and many others. The letter is also signed by local Tea Party and conservative leaders from across the country.

The letter’s signatories express fears that the Schumer-Rubio is “bloated and unwieldy along the lines of Obamacare or Dodd-Frank” and that it also “cedes excessive control over immigration law to an administration that has repeatedly proven itself to be untrustworthy, even duplicitous.”

The group also believes that the bill “legalizes millions of illegal immigrants before securing the borders, thus ensuring future illegal immigration,” and it “rewards law breakers and punishes law enforcement, undermining the rule of law.”


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/20/Conservatives-Tea-Partiers-launch-coalition-to-stop-amnesty-bill

Senate panel OKs tax-welfare benefits for newly legal immigrants




The SenateJudiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge.

In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status.



But immigrant-rights groups called that a rollback of due-process rights for the immigrants and said a drunken-driving incident shouldn’t cost someone a chance at citizenship.

“We cannot and will not support hard-line proposals that take away discretion and limit an individual’s ability to pursue the pathway to citizenship,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigration Project.

Overall, the committee continued to maintain the delicate balance struck by the “Gang of Eight” senators who negotiated the 867-page bill: Quick legal status for illegal immigrants, but delaying citizenship rights until after the administration spends more money on border security, puts in place a new electronic verification system to check workers’ status, and enacts an entry-exit system to check visas at airports and seaports.

In previous days’ action, two Republican members of the Gang of Eight — Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — joined with Democrats to block a series of GOP amendments to stiffen the bill’s security.

But on Monday, the two Republicans sided with their party colleagues on key questions on giving illegal immigrants public benefits.

The 10 Democrats on the committee still outnumber the newly unified Republicans, but the votes signaled tough fights ahead on the Senate floor.


In one vote, Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, tried to prevent anyone but citizens and green-card holders from being able to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which uses the tax code to transfer money to the poor.

But Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said that would deny the tax credit not only to legalized immigrants but also refugees, asylum-seekers and other legal workers.

And Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, said denying the tax credit to legalized immigrants would hurt their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens.

The committee avoided what likely would have been a bitter fight over guns and whether those on the government’s terrorist watch list should be allowed to buy firearms when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, withdrew his amendment.

“Evidently we think it’s OK for people on the terrorist watch list to buy a gun,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
He said he would try again later when the bill comes to the Senate floor.

Economically speaking, the coalition believes the bill “hurts American job-seekers, especially those with less education” and “threatens to bankrupt our already strained entitlement system.” They also think the bill “expands government by creating new bureaucracies, authorizing new spending, and calling for endless regulations,” while serving as a vehicle “shot through with earmarks for politically connected interest groups.”
The coalition thinks, too, that the bill “contains dangerous loopholes that threaten national security” and “overwhelms our immigration bureaucracy, guaranteeing widespread fraud.”

The coalition believes true immigration reform is necessary but does not believe this bill represents true immigration reform. “Reforming our immigration system is an important priority,” the group wrote. “But S.744 is such a defective measure that it would do more harm than good.”

“We urge you to vote against it and against any cloture vote to bring up the bill,” the group added. “Only then can a constructive, measured debate take place on how to improve America's immigration policy.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/20/senate-panel-oks-tax-welfare-benefits-for-newly-le/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Heritage%2BHotsheet

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