Top leaders in the Republican Party are strongly pushing the party to abandon opposition to illegal immigration and embrace Obama’s amnesty for all:
GOP conservatives believed they had won the illegal immigration fight last year when congressional leaders embraced a deportation crackdown, but big-money donors are mounting a counterattack, saying the Republican Party must nominate a pro-legalization candidate if it is to win the White House in 2016.
Mitt Romney’s moneyman Spencer Zwick is leading the charge for GOP leaders to back down on amnesty saying:
“The next standard-bearer must be like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who advocates a pathway to citizenship for most illegal immigrants.”
Republican Party insiders claim amnesty is the only way to take the immigration issue off the table and the various path to citizenship schemes offered by GOP contenders like Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Marco Rubio are the only way Republicans can win the White House.
However, when these same amnesty supporters rammed it through the Senate a few years ago:
A rebellion among conservatives quashed that, and Speaker John A. Boehner emerged chastened from a House Republicans’ issues conference in 2014. The surge of illegal immigrants into Texas last year further stiffened Republicans’ opposition, and the House passed several bills calling for more deportations.”
The divide between the Republican Party establishment and its grassroots over amnesty is wide and getting wider. As GOP political operative Bobbie Kilberg said, “clearly most business people favor comprehensive immigration reform.
Ed Martin, new head of Eagle Forum, said legalization is:
“a nonstarter for any conservative, or American,” and that moving in that direction is a death sentence for a candidate — and perhaps the GOP. “His call is not only incorrect, it is a way to guarantee that we lose,” Mr. Martin said of Mr. Zwick’s comments. “It is an invitation to end your electoral career. The only question is whether it destroys the Republican Party at the same time.”
It will take grassroots pressure like that which stopped previous versions of amnesty to hold Republicans accountable for illegal immigration. Clearly, they would like to roll over and give Obama everything he wants unless their feet are held to the fire.
