(Breitbart) – In what
may be the most important development in the 2016 Presidential race to date,
Donald Trump has announced, and Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) office has
confirmed, that the GOP front-runner is consulting with the Alabama Senator in
crafting his immigration plan for the future of America.
The real estate
mogul’s announcement will send shock waves through Washington D.C. and all
across primary states.
Trump, whose campaign
has focused primarily on issues of immigration and trade, has
seen a meteoric rise since entering the race, with throngs of supporters across
the country rocketing him to the top of every single poll, despite an
extraordinary effort of establishment Republicans to take him down. Republican
pundits have lobbed every imaginable accusation at Trump. Yet these same
pundits, while seemingly furious at the man, have demonstrated no similar
concern, angst, or passion about the dissolution of our southern
border, the rampant exploitation of guest-worker programs, the collapse of
middle class wages, and the growing illegal immigrant crime wave.
Sen. Sessions,
Chairman of the Senate’s Immigration Subcommittee, is widely regarded as
the gold standard on immigration. Sessions has also become the intellectual
thought leader in the Republican Party on appealing to the blue collar voters
who have been abandoned by their political leaders.
For instance, Sen.
Sessions recently led the fight against Obamatrade, issuing one
in-depth report after another about its effects on working families.
The Washington Post reports:
Donald Trump will
unveil a series of position papers in early September, he said in an interview
Friday, beginning with a plan to address immigration policy that was crafted
with the counsel of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a favorite of conservative
activists and an outspoken border hawk…
Sen. Sessions’
spokesman Stephen Miller told The Post:
Senator Sessions enjoyed
the opportunity to speak with Mr. Trump. The senator believes the defining
issues in 2016 will be how to earn the trust of struggling workers, and how to
develop trade and immigration policies that serve their interests.
Trump told The
Post that he holds the Alabama Senator in extremely high regard: “I
like him… Tough guy. I like that. We have a similar thought process.”
Indeed, Sessions is
well-known for his no-nonsense cross examinations, including his subtle yet
devastating unraveling of Lorreta Lynch and his hard-hitting
exchanges in the Budget Committee before Republicans gave the gavel to
leadership-ally Sen. Mike Enzi.
Sessions’ esteemed
reputation on immigration is indeed well-earned. Sessions led the fight to stop
the immigration expansion effort of 2006 and 2007, before leading the
charge to derail the 2013 Gang of Eight bill. Following the 2007
implosion of McCain-Kennedy, the donor class has spent unprecedented sums
of money and organizational resources to try to pass legislation that
would combine amnesty with a massive increase to record yearly immigration
levels.
According to a 2013
report from the Sunlight foundation, between 2007 and 2012, lobbying groups
spent more than $1.5 billion to pass immigration expansions. The centerpiece of
the establishment donor class’s immigration push was the selection
of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as the bill’s chief salesman. In the early
days of the Gang of Eight push, when many conservatives were afraid to speak
out against Rubio, Sen. Sessions began what started as a lonely one-man fight
against the bill– issuing fact-checks on every false statement issued by
Rubio’s office [See just few examples here, here, andhere]. As The
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote of Sessions’ solitary charge
while the bill was being marked up in committee:
The wiry Southerner is
on a one-man crusade to undo the compromise drafted by the Gang of Eight (four
of whom, two Democrats and two Republicans, are colleagues on the
committee). He has dominated the four days of hearings to “mark up” the
bill. As of midday Monday, he had spoken for two hours and 56 minutes — far
longer than the second-place [Chairman] Grassley (2:24) and third-place Chuck
Schumer of New York (1:38).
As the Los Angeles
Times reported Sen. Sessions– in his outspoken crusade to
stop the Gang of Eight bill– collected more hours speaking on the
Senate floor than any other Senator in 2013, including Sen. Mitch
McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen.
Rand Paul (R-KY):
Though some of his
Republican colleagues made marathon stands on the Senate floor in 2013, it is
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) who has the distinction of logging the most
speaking time, according to estimates from a C-SPAN Video Archives
analysis. Sessions spoke for more than 33 hours this year,the
congressional cable network reports.
Ultimately, Sen.
Sessions succeeded in uniting the conservative movement against the Gang of
Eight bill, sending the bill crashing in flames in the House
and subsequently stopping Eric Cantor’s plan to pass the same bill in
chunks–culminating in the historic loss of the former-House Majority leader at
the hands of Congressman Dave Brat (R-VA).
If Trump outlines
immigration policy specifics along the lines of what Sessions has articulated,
polling data suggests that it will not only position Trump to perform well in
the Republican primary, but also in the general election.
As Breitbart News
reported in 2014, prior to the midterm elections, the National Republican
Senate Committee (NRSC) polled several of Sessions’ immigration messaging items
and had the Senator hold a conference call for candidates prior to the historic
midterm gain. The poll conducted by the NRSC produced remarkable findings:
Paragon Insights, a
little-known firm that is on the NRSC’s payroll, asked respondents whether they
would support a GOP Senate candidate who said ‘Immigration policy needs to
serve the interests of the nation as a whole, not a few billionaire CEOs and
immigration activists lobbying for open borders.’
Likely voters approved
by a 71-16 margin. Women supported the sentiment 73-14, higher than men…
Obama’s opponents supported it 82-12, but even Obama supporters gave it 61-21
nod. Liberals supported it 59-21. Most surprising, self-identified Hispanics
supported it 66-21.
Another question
measured support for the idea that ‘The first goal of immigration policy needs
to be getting unemployed Americans back to work – not importing more low-wage
workers to replace them.’
Like the other
question, the response was enthusiastic. Likely voters: 70-18 in favor. Men:
67-20. Women: 73-17. Liberals: 54-29. Independents: 70-15. Whites: 72-16.
Hispanics: 59-32.
The most important
point, underscored by the polling data but often lost in media labels, is that
Sessions’ immigration philosophy and strategy is fundamentally grounded in
principles that poll well with moderates, liberals, minorities, and the
American electorate at large. The consultant class has never understood
the immigration issue: for them, immigration messaging is primarily based in
vague references to border enforcement in the primary, followed by general
election support for large-scale immigration that turns off blue collar voters
and women voters the GOP needs to win.
The hallmark of the
Alabama Senator and former-prosecutor’s approach to immigration strategy has
been his evidentiary, prosecutorial style. Sessions has developed a reputation
for putting out lengthy policy proposals with in-depth references to academic
research. For instance, at the beginning of the year, Sessions released an
immigration handbook, a content-rich 25- page document for incoming freshmen
Congressmen and women. The handbook provided a roadmap documenting the collapse
of interior enforcement, the rampant abuses of the H-1B visa by large corporations,
and the record issuances of green cards that is pulling down wages. To stitch
together the case that unprecedented flows of immigration are
devastating wages and putting American middle class dreams out of reach,
Sessions cites analysis from Harvard Professor George Borjas, Georgetown
professor Eric Gould, Howard University’s Ron Hira, UC Davis’s Norm Matloff, as
well as raw data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.
Following Microsoft’s
announcement that it was firing 18,000 workers, Sen. Sessions took to the
Senate floor to expose Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Sheldon Adelson for
continuing to push for more H-1Bs and cheap labor while laying off American
workers.
As far as I am
concerned, so far as I can see, those three billionaires have three votes. An
individual who works stocking the shelves at the grocery store, the barber, the
doctor, the lawyer, the cleaners, the operator, and the person who picks up our
garbage are every bit as valuable as they are. I know who I represent. I
represent the citizens of the United States of America, and I am trying to do
what is in their best interest. And… what may be good for Mr. Adelson and Mr.
Microsoft and Mr. Buffett is not always in accord with what is good for the
American people. I know that… [and] I am going to push back.
In his now-famous
immigration speech on the Senate floor last year–known as his Masters of the
Universe speech, in which he directly took on billionaire and
immigration expansionist Mark Zuckerberg, Sessions declared:
One of the groups that
have joined the chorus of special interests demanding executive action on
immigration is FWD.us, run by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg… Well, the “masters
of the universe” are very fond of open borders as long as these open borders
don’t extend to their gated compounds and fenced-off estates… The job of
elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington — not
to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs
and dreams to the highest bidder.
In response to this
story, Sen. Sessions’ spokesperson told Breitbart News, “The key to
winning in 2016 is proving to the working men and women of the country that you
will serve their needs– not the needs of the political class– first and
always.”
Donald Trump has long
been a conservative favorite for his tough stance on immigration and trade and
his message that we need to bring jobs back to the United States of America and
put the needs of the American people first. A continued emphasis on this
message and consultation with Sen. Sessions will send a resounding signal to
millions of blue collar American voters across the country that a vote for
Trump may be their best chance at regaining control over their collapsing
economic futures.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/14/game-change-trump-consults-with-sen-jeff-sessions-on-immigration-strategy/
http://www.teaparty.org/game-change-trump-consults-sen-jeff-sessions-immigration-strategy-113312/
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