Politico: Those Wacky TEA Partiers Now An Ally To Immigration Reform

Well, this is a fine how-do-ya-do for a hump day morning

Immigration’s new ally: Tea partiers

Did your BS detector just ping?

Immigration reform supporters are about to get some new conservative bonafides – prominent tea party backers.

Several conservative activists and tea party group leaders are meeting with Sen. Marco Rubio Tuesday afternoon to discuss immigration reform, including a list of what they support — and don’t.

In a draft of their seven principles, obtained by POLITICO, the groups make no calls for a ban on “amnesty” — a longtime rallying cry of conservatives grassroots groups.

It’d be nice to see that draft, available nowhere on Politico. Usually they, like most on-line, would tell us what it is or have a draft. My cynicism meter just pegged to 8.

Tea Party Express, TheTeaParty.Net and Revive America leaders as well as Americans For Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist are expected to be among the more than two dozen grassroots conservative leaders huddling with the Florida Republican. Most of the groups in the meeting support immigration reform.

Yes, but not with mass amnesty. Border control, revamping the system to deal with temporary workers, visitors, students, etc, so they do not become illegal aliens, slapping companies around who employ illegals, stopping the use of US government programs by illegals, and, OK, perhaps a pathway for a very small few. That’s what we support, in general. None of those groups have shown any support for a pathway, or any of the other measures, included in Rubio’s naive Gang Of 8 plan, which is obviously extremely pro-Democrat, since Dems are not complaining at all about the bill.

Some tea party groups moved quickly to distance themselves from supporting the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration package just hours after the meeting with Rubio was reported.

“We were invited by Sen. Rubio’s office to discuss the current legislation on immigration, and importantly, to offer our views on how we think it can be fixed,” said Niger Innis, national outreach director of TheTeaParty.net. Innis said that they have not agreed to support the Gang of Eight’s legislation.

OK, so 1 of 4 groups mentioned is explicitly not supporting the legislation. Grover Norquist, yes, I can see him supporting it. We can’t trust him on Islamic radicals, and we can’t necessarily support him on this. But Norquist’s group is not a TEA Party group.

Other key conservative groups like Freedom Works and Club for Growth – two that supporters have tried to get to step up support for immigration reform – have maintained their silence on the issue.

Neither group has offered their support for Rubio’s plan, and neither group tends to get involved much in this issue, so it is no wonder they have maintained their silence. That should not be taken as tacit support.

Essentially, all that’s happening here is that a bunch of conservative groups will meet with Rubio and tell him his plan sucks worse than the 2008 Detroit Lions (0-16) and that he is a naive fool for thinking that Democrats will wait 13 years to naturalize the illegals, that they won’t get government services, that the border will be secure, etc and so on. Rubio is the new McCain.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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