(Breitbart) – Despite 20 Republicans defecting
to join Democrats, Republicans and conservatives won big on Thursday evening:
An amendment from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) passed onto the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) stripping amnesty for illegal aliens from the
defense bill.
Brooks’ amendment, which stripped from the
NDAA language that was inserted during the Armed Services Committee markup
by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)—a freshman liberal Democrat who wants to
amnesty all the illegal aliens in America—passed the House of Representatives
221-202 on Thursday evening.
“Today is a great victory for Americans and
lawful immigrants who wish to serve America in our Armed Forces,” Brooks said
in a statement after the vote. “I asked my colleagues to consider how much
American families are struggling in an anemic job and wage market and how much
the Gallego amendment makes job and income prospects for Americans even
worse. It makes no sense to me that, at the same time the Army is
downsizing and issuing pink slips to American soldiers serving in
Afghanistan, there are Congressmen who seek to help illegal aliens deprive
American citizens and lawful immigrants of military service opportunities. I’m
pleased the House chose to stand up for American citizens and protect the
Constitutional duty of Congress to set immigration law. Today’s vote was
the fourth rejection of the President’s unconstitutional DACA program, with
Republicans overwhelming standing up for the will of the American people and
the citizens and lawful immigrants who want to serve our country.”
Gallego’s amendment would have allowed illegal
aliens who have received President Obama’s first executive amnesty—the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which some 800,000 or so illegal aliens
have received—to enlist in the United States military. It would have come with
an NDAA that reduces America’s force size—meaning the NDAA would have, if it
weren’t for the Brooks amendment bolstered by conservatives like
Reps. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Dave Brat (R-VA) among others, put
illegal aliens ahead of Americans. What’s more, it would have used a defense
bill—rather than an immigration bill—to do it.
Despite the massive Republican success and
passage of the amendment, a whopping 20 Republicans still joined all the
Democrats in voting against the Brooks amendment. They are: Reps. Jeff Denham
(R-CA), Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), Rep. Adam Kinzinger
(R-IL), Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Rep. Carlos Curbelo
(R-FL), Charles Dent (R-PA), Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Rep. Bob
Dold (R-IL), Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY),Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), Rep.
John Katko (R-NY), Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Rep. Tom MacArthur
(R-NJ) Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ), Rep. Dan Newhouse
(R-WA), Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
(R-FL),Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), and Rep.
David Valadao (R-CA).
What’s more, this comes after a rancorous
battle in the House Rules Committee this week—where extra attention was drawn
to that committee’s chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX). The process
for amendments drew scrutiny too, due to the extraordinarily controversial
nature of Gallego’s extreme amendment. Sessions eventually, along with House
Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), backed
Brooks’ amendment—but the only way it got on the bill in the first place was
because of a group of Republican members in the Armed Services committee not
including Thornberry voting to add it into the bill.
The six Republicans who voted for the Gallego
amendment in Armed Services markup are: McSally, MacArthur, LoBiondo, Gibson,
Coffman and Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT). It’s extremely notable that Zinke
did, because when the Brooks amendment came to the floor he turned on the
Gallego effort despite being previously supportive of it—ultimately voting for
Brooks’ amendment to eliminate the Gallego amnesty text.
Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK), who like Zinke
served in the U.S. military and is one of the veterans from this current
freshman congressional class, told Breitbart News that the Gallego amendment
was unacceptable and jeopardizes national security.
“While I support legal immigrants who are not
yet citizens of the United States joining the military and receiving
citizenship for their hard work and sacrifice, I find the amendment in the 2016
NDAA to allow DACA, or Dreamers, to enlist in the military to be a more
complicated issue,” Russell said. “There are national security concerns
that come along with illegal immigrants serving in our military.”
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) hammered Republicans for removing the Gallego text as “xenophobic”
and “un-American.”
“This is yet another example of anti-immigrant
attitude on the part of the House Republicans,” Pelosi said. “This xenophobic,
anti-newcomer attitude is something that is un-American.”
House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer
(D-MD) similarly bashed Republicans.“I would hope that our Republican
friends would come to their senses,” Hoyer said, adding that he hoped
Republicans “would not be blinded by prejudice or a desire to exclude, but be
motivated by a desire to recognize the patriotism, and desire to serve, of
these young people.”
The effort threatened to derail the entire
NDAA bill, which would have been an even more embarrassing episode for House
Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy
(R-CA) and Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). In fact, the
reason why this current leadership team—as listed in the sentence before this
one—doesn’t include the name “Eric Cantor” is because of the fact that last
year Cantor was part of a secretive effort with Denham and Coffman to try to do
exactly what Gallego did in the NDAA. After the effort was exposed, Cantor lost
his election—the first time in U.S. history a sitting House Majority Leader was
beaten in a primary election—in large part because of the fact that Brat honed
in on Cantor’s support for amnesty. This fiasco, if it wasn’t resolved like it
was with the Brooks amendment, threatened to jeopardize not just NDAA passage
but the re-elections in primaries of Boehner, Scalise and Sessions—and probably
more.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/14/20-traitors-republicans-who-voted-to-gut-americas-military-using-amnestied-illegal-aliens/
http://www.teaparty.org/20-traitors-republicans-voted-gut-americas-military-using-amnestied-illegal-aliens-99019/?promocode=tpo-1690519&utm_source=newsemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tpo-1690519
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