Reid Bulldozes Ahead; Pushes Gang Bill to the Precipice

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in panic mode. Although there’s no rational reason to rush through a vote on 1,000+ pages of Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization legislation, Reid threatened members that he would file for cloture by the end of next week. That means a final up-or-down vote would follow within three days. Reid, aware that S. 744 support dwindles daily and that 61 percent of Americans  favor enforcement over legalization, he nevertheless irrationally predicted that it could pass the Senate “today, tomorrow or next week.” [Harry Reid: Gang Bill Could Pass Senate Tomorrow, by Burgess Everett, Politico, June 18, 2013]

Senator Jeff Sessions knows what really motivates Reid. Comparing S. 744 to a mackerel, Sessions said:

     “As sunlight falls on the mackerel, it begins to smell more and more.”

Sessions successfully turned back amnesty efforts in 2006 and 2007. In 2006, Senate titans John McCain and Ted Kennedy championed the bills; in 2007, President George W. Bush led the advocacy cause." [Senator Tries to Run Out the Clock on Immigration, by Johathan Weisman, New York Times, June 17, 2013]

At least one former Bush official on the amnesty scene during the 2007 failed effort agrees with Sessions. He described Reid’s hurry up mode as colorfully as Sessions:

     “The longer there is between the time you unveil the proposal and the time you vote on the proposal, the greater the likelihood that it will wind up not making it all the way through to passage. Once you’ve got this thing baked, you’ve got to get it out of the oven and into the refrigerator and start eating it pretty quickly. Because if you let it sit on the table — I’m going to beat the metaphor to death — the ants will start eating the cake up.”

Reid and the Gang of 8 have made an all or nothing security-be-damned gamble, the wisdom of which flies in the face of public sentiment. On Tuesday, the Senate defeated two separate enforcement amendments that would have required the federal government to enforce immigration laws already on the books before granting amnesty.

John Thune’s (R-S.D.) amendment, defeated 39-to-54, would have required the federal government to complete 350 miles of reinforced, double-layered fencing along the Southwest border of Mexico before illegal aliens could be given Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status and also would have required another 350 miles of fencing to be constructed before aliens could adjust from RPI status to green cards. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated border fencing.

David Vitter’s (R-LA.) amendment, which failed 36-to-58, would have required the federal government to complete the biometric entry/exit system at all ports of entry before illegal aliens could receive RPI status. The entry/exit system was mandated in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

The inescapable conclusion is that the Gang and its allies support amnesty for 11 million aliens and work authorization for several million future legal immigrants more than they do enforcing immigration laws.

Watch Sessions defend Americans in this video interview here.