GOP Senators Ride to Schumer’s Rescue
“Nobody in the House wants to touch this bill with a 10-foot pole, and the pathway to 60 votes is diminishing every day. In come Corker and Hoeven to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and negotiate a poor-man’s Cornyn compromise with the Gang of 8. In their ineluctable desire to pass an amnesty bill with the requisite window dressing, the new wimp coalition is pushing yet another phony compromise. Yes, because constituents from states like Tennessee and North Dakota are flooding their offices with calls demanding ‘give us amnesty or give us death,'” says Daniel Horrowitz at RedState.com.
Trumpka Says AFL-CIO Wants Obamacare Included in Amnesty
“What may have surprised some, the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumpka, made a loud clarifying statement this week telling Newsmax that organized labor will oppose any immigration-reform measure that includes a ban on government-managed healthcare for illegal immigrants,” says TheGlobalDispatch.com.
“Trumka’s fighting words came at a time when the Senate working group — known popularly as the Gang of Eight — appears headed toward including that healthcare ban in the comprehensive immigration package headed toward a Senate by July 4.”
Sen. Cruz Launches No Amnesty Petition
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched a national petition on Thursday to stop the Senate Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill and send Washington a “strong signal” of the grassroots opposition to the bill. ‘This is urgent,’ Cruz wrote in an e-mail to supporters. ‘We must stop this Gang of 8 immigration bill, which would give amnesty to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants with no guarantee of a secure border,'” Breitbart News reports.
Boxer, Other Democrats Flip on Suppressing Wages for Americans
“Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) wasn’t always a fan of comprehensive immigration reform. In 2007, as the Senate was debating the reform package backed by President George W. Bush, she warned that it would ‘exert downward pressure on wages at a time when we are already losing our middle class,'” notes National Review. “Fast forward to 2013, and those concerns have all but disappeared. On June 7, Boxer praised the ‘fair and effective guest-worker program’ in the Gang of Eight legislation. The bill “will increase wages for workers,” she said. ‘I’m excited about it . . . It is so overdue.’ And though Boxer said she would push for ‘amendments that are friendly to workers,’ her support for the final package is all but guaranteed.”