During the past Congress, Bonner scored a -38.5 on our index, the seventh lowest score in the party.  Here is what I wrote last year on Bonner in a piece advocating for the replacement of the entire state House delegation sans Mo Brooks:

He was elected to the House in 2002 during a good Republican year, and has held his seat for five terms.

While conservatives cheered on the effort to keep the GOP pledge by cutting $100 billion from the 2011 budget, this member deemed it “misguided.”

This member is one of those who used his membership with the Republican Study Committee as a means of concealing his affinity for big-government from his conservative constituents.  After years of voting against every single RSC proposal, and after realizing that the group would not roll over and genuflect before leadership, he summarily terminated his membership.

Throughout his career, he has been a reliable vote for CAFE standards, ethanol, and all sort of subsidies.

No – he doesn’t represent a Democrat-leaning district in the northeast, even though he scored a dismal 54% on the Heritage Action Scorecard.  He represents an R+14 district in this staunch conservative state.  In fact, it is such a conservative district that he faced no Democrat opponent in 2010.  His nearest competition was from the Constitution Party.

Well, one down, four more to go.

We look forward to finding a comprehensive conservative to fill this red seat – one who is committed to challenging the current direction of the party leadership.

But when you listen carefully to the fatuous arguments propagated inside the beltway, you will discover the answer.  These people believe that building a fence and monitoring visas will not help end illegal immigration.  In their estimation, the only thing that will end illegal immigration, to the extent that they desire to do so, is unlimited legal immigration.  In other words, in their view, there is no way to establish sovereignty over our own land unless we invite every individual in the world who would like to move here.  Hence, our immigration policy should not be dictated by what benefits the country at large, but by the level of worldwide demand to immigrate to America.  #DCbackwardlogic

If I didn’t know anything about our current and historical immigration policies (which aptly describes 90% of the elected officials), I would think we are living in the ‘30s – a period when we only issued 30,000-100,000 green cards per year.  Yet, we have issued over 1 million green cards almost every year over the past 2 decades.  That’s hardly a closed door policy.

Most notably, the countries from which most people have migrated illegally have been the recipients of the most generous immigration policies of all time.  We have issued roughly 5.5 million green cards to immigrants from Mexico (and millions more from other Latin American countries) since 1986 – overlapping with the entire period of illegal migration.  From 2000-2009, 17% of all our immigrants were from Mexico, while 41% were from Latin America and Mexico combined.  Hence, the time period with the largest expansion of illegal immigration coincided with the most generous period of legal immigration for any particular country or region in the history of American immigration.  The idea that the lack of legal immigration options from Mexico and some other Lain American countries is the culprit for illegal immigration is beyond preposterous.

The reality is that we could never have a large enough legal immigration system to accommodate everyone in the world who wants to come here, thereby preventing people from entering illegally or overstaying their visas.  Just last year, a whopping 8 million people applied for the diversity visa lottery!  So even an annual level of 2 million green cards, as prescribed in the Senate bill, would not be sufficient to cover all those who yearn to come here.  According to a recent Pew survey, 35% of Mexicans would like to come here.  That’s 39 million people from one country.  Gallup finds that 138 million people worldwide would like to immigrate to the U.S.

Undoubtedly, there are many good people among those who yearn to come here to the shining city on a hill.  However, nobody would ever suggest that we could feasibly absorb everyone who seeks that dream.  Perforce, if we desire to preserve our sovereignty and prioritize those immigrants that best enrich our culture and economy, we must implement comprehensive enforcement.  We will never be able to open our doors wide enough to prevent illegal immigration without enforcement…that is unless we give up the desire to live in the United States of America.

For far too long, the debate over foreign policy has been expressed though the prism of the false choice between interventionists and isolationists.  Those of us who oppose the interventions on behalf of the “Arab Spring” islamists are called isolationists.  The reality is that we are  Reagan conservatives who believe in a robust effort to repel Islamic terrorism.  We don’t oppose interventions that are in America’s best interests.  Quite the contrary, we want to kill as many Islamists before they kill us.  But in the case of Libya, Syria, and Egypt, we are actually intervening on behalf of our enemies.

Granted that Syria is more complicated than the other two examples.  Bashar Assad is a sworn enemy of the United States, the closest ally of Iran, and a prolific exporter of terror.  In a perfect world, it would be great to overthrow him and stick it to Iran.  But the reality is that the strongest elements of the insurgency are saturated with Al-Qaeda affiliated extremists, much like the insurgencies in other countries.  Why place American money and weapons in the hands of people who will be just as adversarial to our interests as the current regime?

In the case of the Arab Spring, the best thing to do is root for injuries on both sides.

When the left and the Schumer Republicans speak of immigration reform, they are referring to one aspect – and one aspect only – legalizing those already here illegally.  That is not immigration reform.  Immigration reform means changing our legal immigration system to on that identifies and prioritizes those who best benefit the broad country from a system that prioritizes those who benefit nobody (or special interests) and encumbers those who would be net contributors.  It also means implementing enforcement and protecting our national security interests first.  Granting amnesty may or may not be a component of that, depending on your viewpoint, but it certainly is not the centerpiece of immigration reform.

Earlier today, I watched our good friend Raul Labrador discuss immigration at a Heritage bloggers briefing.  He mentioned immigration reform about a dozen times, asserting that conservatives must be for immigration reform and that it’s not enough just to oppose the Senate bill.  I respectfully reject that notion out of hand.  Our first obligation is always to stop bad legislation.  Should we have said “we can’t just oppose Obamacare unless we first propose an alternative to deal with our broken healthcare system?”  “We must support healthcare reform.”

Well, certainly not.  And we certainly must not support the Schumer/Obama/La Raza proposal or anything similar that the House gang is concocting just because it is named “immigration reform” or because it is supported by 500 lobbyists.

Moreover, it is insulting to suggest that conservatives who want enforcement implemented before legalization are not “for” any reform.  In fact, unlike some other issues, such as gun control and cap and trade, this is actually an issue conservatives would embrace.  Here is what we are for:

• Immigration reform means passing something similar to Lamar Smith’s bill, which eliminates the 55,000 junk visas from the diversity lottery and reallocates them to those who graduate from US universities with advanced degrees in STEM.
• Immigration reform means eliminating all the magnets that have enticed people to come here illegally.  It means blocking refundable tax credits for illegals.  It means reviewing our birthright citizenship policies, which allow all illegals, holders of student visas or guest worker visas to collect benefits on behalf of their American-born children.
• Immigration reform means not only securing the border and implementing exit-entry before legalization, but also restoring 287(g) and cracking down on sanctuary cities.
• Immigration reform means making it cheaper for those who we want to immigrate to go through the process.
• Immigration reform means enforcing our public charge laws when processing applications.
• Immigration reform means to protect America first by not letting in security risks reinstating programs like the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which will help protect against such threats who come in on student or worker visas.

Protecting our borders and sovereignty is a requirement of government; reforming our legal immigration system is a necessary function of government.  They must be dealt with first.  Only after there is a parallel agreement from the left to deal with our issues can we discuss any sort of legalization.  This is the approach that should be pursued by the House Judiciary Committee.

What is being proposed now is the antithesis of immigration reform, and conservatives should not be bullied into supporting it.  Words matter.

Back in January, Republicans and conservatives got together at Williamsburg and agreed to “suspend” the debt ceiling law until May 18 in return for the Senate passing a budget.  I never liked the idea because, among other reasons, a Senate-passed budget is not such a good thing.  Yes, they are not so excited about publicizing their blueprint for more debt, and yes, the fact that they didn’t pass a budget for over 3 years was a good talking point.  But do we really want them to have a vehicle for fast-tracking tax increases, debt ceiling increases, and other nefarious policies through reconciliation?

That concern is shared by Senators Cruz, Lee, and Paul.  They are also concerned that if the Senate goes to conference with the House on the FY 2014 budget, they will slip in a debt ceiling increase.  Once that becomes part of the conference report, it would be privileged and inoculated from the filibuster or the amendment process.  To that end, they have decided to block Harry Reid’s unanimous consent request to go to conference over the budget until they agree not to slip in a debt ceiling increase.  Needless to say, the Democrats have not made that commitment.  I wonder why.

In comes John McCain, Obama’s newest ally, along with Susan Collins to chide the actions of the conservative senators as bizarre and unprecedented.  He’s right.  It is unprecedented for new members of the Senate to take a leadership role in defending the country from the bipartisan statism that he has propagated so fervently over the past two decades.

It’s about time we send some reinforcements to our guys.  We’re going to have solid opportunities in red state like Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota – just to name a few.  There are already some solid prospects on the horizon.  The real question is if the professional conservatives are going to blithely ignore another primary cycle and let McCain and his ilk destroy the party.

It looks like Mitch McConnell’s pass from Chuck Schumer to publicly remain silent on the amnesty bill has expired.

While McConnell has come out of the witness protection program to attack the ‘low-hanging fruit’ IRS scandal with alacrity, he has remained silent on the most profound threat to our Republic – the Schumer immigration reform bill.  How can the sitting GOP leader remain silent on a bill that will compound the mistakes he voted for in 1986 and create a permanent Democrat majority?  How can the top Republican in the Senate remain insouciant toward the Obamacare-style discretion that is afforded to DHS in a way that will make future deportations almost impossible?  How can a self-described conservative be indiffernet to a bill that will chart a pathway to welfare benefits for millions of low-skilled illegal and legal immigrants within just a few years?

Well, it’s quite simple.  Chuck Schumer is the defacto GOP leader in the Senate.  All he has to do is craft legislation, and Republicans will ask how many votes he needs.

Earlier today, McConnell told The Hill’s Alex Bolton that he will support the motion to proceed with debate on the amnesty bill, noting that “the status quo is not good.”

So even as the Senate Judiciary Committee votes to allow criminal aliens to receive amnesty and for them to collect billions in refundable tax credits McConnell is OK with it.

So even as Obama is embroiled in the worst scandals of his administration, McConnell plans to bail him out with his second biggest legacy victory.

So he praises the Gang of 8 without mentioning one concern from the dozens of problems in the bill?

Mitch McConnell voted for the 1986 amnesty bill.  Seldom do lawmakers have the opportunity to rectify the same mistakes in such a dramatic way.  Instead he is opting to roll over and genuflect before The Schumercare Democrat Voting Act of 2013.  This is endemic of McConnell’s approach to follow from behind instead of lead from the front.  He knows that Democrats have the votes to strike down all GOP amendments to put real enforcement triggers in the bill.  They have already done that on a committee level.  Once the debate proceeds, there is no way to stop the runaway train.  Failing to filibuster it now is nothing but a rubber stamp on the bill.  And despite McConnell’s carefully choreographed statements, that is exactly what he wants.

If we’ve learned any lesson from the gun debate it is that you need a filibuster early on to test vote the Senate and bring all of the cowardly members out of the shadows on the issue.  In the case of the gun debate, once those who voted for cloture were documented, they heard the wrath of their constituents and backed off.  Schumer would love to dive straight into this bill before the unwashed masses begin paying attention.  Opposing a filibuster and praising the bill early on is tantamount to full support of the bill.

McConnell praised the gang’s work noting that “the Gang of Eight has made a substantial contribution to moving the issue forward. So far, I’m told that the Judiciary Committee has not in any fundamental way undone the agreement reached by the eight senators so I’m hopeful we’ll be able to get a bill we can pass here in the Senate.”

Evidently, he thinks the fact that the committee has kept the bill intact and voted down commonsense amendments is a good thing, and will enable its passage.  He thinks that Chuck Schumer has made a “substantial contribution.”  Why doesn’t he just come out and endorse the bill in unambiguous terms?  He’s got a lot of money to run ads; why not run some pro-amnesty ads so his Kentucky constituents can get a clear picture as to where he stands on such a consequential issue?

Folks, the only thing that is not good about the status quo is the lack of a bold contrast – or any contrast – to Schumer’s agenda in the Senate.  We need a choice, not a faint and pathetic echo.

Schumer’s immigration deform bill might play well with McConnell’s base of donors and establishment consultants who desire to remake the party, but it won’t play well with his constituents.

Cross-posted at RedState.com

Throughout the past week of marking up the amnesty bill, the Republican gang members on the committee – Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham – were voting together with the Democrats against amendments that would strengthen the enforcement mechanisms to trigger any amnesty.  However, on some of the more embarrassing amendments, the two Republicans have been voting the right way.  After all, Democrats have enough votes to defeat those amendments without their participation, so why make them look bad with the rubes in the GOP base?  We long suspected collaboration between the Democrats and these members, but today Chuck Schumer gave away the secret.

Senator Jeff Sessions, who has been a statesman on this issue, offered an amendment to bar illegals from receiving refundable tax credits during the “RPI” amnesty status.  Remember, that advocates of the gang’s bill are incessantly denying the fact that these people will receive benefits during the first 10 years of the amnesty.  Well, every Democrat affirmed what we already know by voting to retain those benefits.  Except, in this case, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake voted with Sessions and the Republicans.  If you watch the roll call (at around the 3:05 mark), you can hear Chuck Schumer asking an aid “do our Republicans have a pass on this one?”  The aid says, “yes.”

Hmm…later in the day, Chuck Grassley offered an amendment to bar gang members from receiving amnesty.  This amendment was also defeated along a party-line vote…without the help of Flake and Graham.  I guess that was embarrassing enough for them to warrant a hall pass from Schumer.  Same goes for Cornyn’s amendment which would bar amnesty for criminal aliens , including domestic abusers, child abusers, and drunk drivers, all of whom could potentially get legal status under the Senate bill.

Somehow I don’t think that voters in South Carolina and Arizona elected Graham and Flake to serve as a puppy dog for Chuck Schumer.

If this doesn’t illustrate for you what is wrong with the whole framework of this amnesty bill, I don’t know what will.

Cross-posted at Red State

We all know that Obamacare was the crown jewel of Obama’s first term.  With passage of that monstrosity, Obama effectively nationalized the largest sector of the economy and created incorrigible dependency for years to come.  If there is one single piece of legislation that can be defined as the crown jewel of his second term, it’s the gang’s amnesty bill.  What better way to leave office than to bequeath to his party a permanent governing majority engendered by mass amnesty and the doubling of our current record baseline of immigration?  Unfortunately, Republicans are preparing to hand this gift to him on a silver platter, ironically, at a time when his entire presidency should be in peril.

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will pass the amnesty bill out to the floor.  The fix is already in.  They will get every Democrat plus Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, and perhaps Orrin Hatch, to vote for it.  The bill will likely sail through the Senate in June.  Only a few Republicans have voiced any degree of outrage at the bill and the way it was crafted. Moreover, the gang evidently had the blessing of Mitch McConnell.  Sure, many of them will vote against the bill, but they are unlikely to filibuster the bill after all the enforcement amendments are voted down.

What about the “Tea Party-controlled House?

Last week, the House gang of 8, comprised of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), Sam Johnson (R-Texas) and John Carter (R-Texas), reached “an agreement in principle.”  While they continue to keep the details secret, media reports indicate that their proposal will closely track the ‘legalization now, enforcement later’ framework of the Senate bill.  In order to ameliorate this amnesty pig and make it more palatable to a Republican body, they are just wrangling over which shiny objects to place in the bill, such as delaying citizenship for an extra two years ( a red herring in itself because citizenship will never be delayed that long).  The gang seems to have the full support of Boehner, who has declined to utter one negative word about the current proposal.  He also has Paul Ryan engaging in an indefatigable gang of 2 with Gutierrez to pass amnesty now.

That leaves us with the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (VA), as the only body with the power to stop this madness and launch a counteroffensive based on conservative principles.  On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Senate amnesty bill.  This is their moment to shine.  Many of us off the Hill have been exposing the dozens of egregious provisions in the bill; now it’s time for the elected conservatives to have their voices heard.

Concurrently, they must push for comprehensive enforcement first.  Just last week, we heard of yet another person who was let in legally from a high risk region and is now engaging in terror activities.  They should look at restoring the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which required those visa recipients from countries that represent a security risk to register with an ICE office and report regularly about their plans.  In light of Obama’s DHS approving 99.5% of all applicants for his illegal “DACA” administrative amnesty, I don’t think anyone has confidence in our willingness to weed out bad actors.

They should look at clamping down on sanctuary cities and deputizing state and local law enforcement to do the job the federal government won’t do.

They should look at our unqualified birthright citizenship policy, which turns our immigration and guest worker system into an immediate ticket to the welfare state.

They should look at cutting off all the magnets that lead to illegal immigration.

They should look at ending chain migration.

And finally, they should look at piecemeal reforms to our legal immigration system – reforms that prioritize those who benefit the country at large and make it easier and cheaper for them do go through the process, while reducing immigration that burdens the welfare state, adds to our record numbers, and discourages Americanization.  Former committee chair Lamar Smith has a good bill that would abolish the 55,000 junk visas from the diversity lottery and reallocate them to those who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees in STEM.  The bill received 257 votes last year (it failed because it was brought up under suspension, requiring a 2/3ds threshold).

Committee members must also get a commitment from leadership not to tack on any amnesty to a piecemeal bill, which would be used as a vehicle to go straight to conference with the Senate.

Seldom do members of a single committee have the opportunity to stand up for the millions of us who have been voiceless throughout this entire debate.  Now is their time to shine.

Over the past few years, Chris Crane, the president of the ICE union, has done yeoman’s work exposing how the Obama administration hampers efforts of his fellow officers in upholding the laws on the books.  Well, it appears that his group is not alone.  A 12,000-person union representing the USCIS has come out with a scathing criticism of the Senate gang’s bill:

In a statement to be released Monday, obtained by The Daily Caller, Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, offers his AFL-CIO affiliated union’s concerns with the current immigration system and contends that the Senate bill does not address those concerns. He further points out that, like the Immigration and Custom Enforcement employees union, the USCIS Council was not consulted in the bill’s drafting and urges lawmakers to oppose the bill.

“We at USCIS are honored to stand with immigration officers and law enforcement officials across the nation,” says Palinkas in the statement. [...]

In his statement, Palinkas highlights nine issues his union believes the Gang of Eight legislation fails to address with the current immigration system, including the fact that Palinkas says USCIS has become an application “approval machine” where few applications are denied due to a “rubber stamp” culture, “discouraging proper investigation into red flags and discouraging the denial of any applications.”

The bureaucracy of the current immigration system, Palinkas argues, makes coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents difficult and “USCIS officers are pressured to approve visa applications for many individuals ICE agents have determined should be placed into deportation proceedings.”

Palinkas further decries what he calls Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s “secretive panels,” which must approve USCIS officers’ notices for illegal immigrants to appear before federal judges to be put in removal proceedings.

I know many open-borders “conservatives” will dismiss this because it is coming from a union.  But this union is not seeking collective bargaining or to shake down the public for higher wages.  All they want is to do their job in enforcing our laws and protecting our borders from security threats.  In light of the revelation that 99.2% of those who applied for Obama’s illegal administrative amnesty program were approved, these agents have a right for their concerns to be addressed.  Why is the administration not letting them reject the applications of those who are deemed to be threats to our national security?

Only in Washington can groups like La Raza be placed ahead of the interests of the officers charged with enforcing our immigration and border security laws.

Among the many vices of this travesty of a bill is a hidden provision that actually repeals E-verify.  The bill preempts states from using E-verify until the federal government creates a new system that is currently unknown and untested.  So we are ditching a system that is 99.8% accurate and used by hundreds of thousands of employers on a voluntary basis for the promise of some unicorn system in the future.

At present, 19 states have some form of an E-verify law, requiring verification of legal status, most often for state jobs.  In order to prevent a new defacto amnesty, Charles Grassley proposed an amendment which would allow state E-Verify laws to remain in effect until the federal mandate to use the new employment verification system is up and running.

Sounds like commonsense?  Every Democrat plus the two GOP gang members (Flake and Graham) voted against it.  Oh, and Orrin Hatch decided to throw in with them as well.

Do you think he would have taken this vote at this time in 2012?