Thread: Scott Brown uses border fight in New Hampshire Senate push

By Seth McLaughlin - The Washington Times - Monday, August 4, 2014

NEWTON, N.H. — The political battle over the border surge of illegal immigrants is spilling beyond Capitol Hill and onto the campaign trail in the states — with a prime example now playing out here, where Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown is hoping to use the issue to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

In recent days, Mr. Brown, who previously represented Massachusetts in the Senate, has aired television and radio ads and launched an online petition calling on voters to tell President Obama and Mrs. Shaheen that their immigration policies that are “hurting this country.” And he’s stumped on the thorny issue a recent a meet-and-greet at a local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Kingston.

“We need to secure the border once and for all,” Mr. Brown told reporters following an event here last week at HALO Maritime Defense Systems. “There is a history of the president and Sen. Shaheen and others not being strong on these border and amnesty issues.”

Mrs. Shaheen last week voted for a bill to spend nearly $3 billion on housing and caring for the illegal immigrant children and families surging into Texas.

But that legislation was blocked by Republicans and a handful of Democrats who said it did little to change the policies that are enticing illegal immigrants in the first place — chiefly a 2008 law that requires the government to give put the children through a long judicial process before they can be deported.

Mr. Brown pounced on Mrs. Shaheen’s vote for the bill, saying the proposal is a “travesty.”

“It’s not right, and it’s unfair to the millions of people who are playing by the rules and waiting patiently to enter the country legally,” he said.

Asked the following day whether she thinks Mr. Brown’s attacks will stick, Mrs. Shaheen told The Washington Times, “I think we need to address the challenge of immigration in this country.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...hampshire-sen/

By S.A. Miller - The Washington Times - Thursday, August 7, 2014

Republican Scott Brown angled Thursday to make himself the border-security candidate in New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race, slamming rival Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for blocking legislation to deploy the National Guard on the border.

The Brown campaign blasted out an email that highlighted a 2010 vote by Mrs. Shaheen, a Democrat, that helped kill a bill that would have sent 6,000 National Guard to the southern border.

“Because of President Obama and Senator Shaheen, we have an immigration crisis on our hands,” said Brown campaign manager Colin Reed. “Rather than fix the problem, she has made it worse by opposing efforts to secure the border and by supporting amnesty for young illegal immigrants which has encouraged more people to come here in violation of the law.”

He said that Scott Brown, who voted for the 2010 bill when he was a senator from Massachusetts, still believes the National Guard “can help alleviate problems at the border by providing security and humanitarian assistance to people in need.”

Immigration has emerged as a top campaign issue in races across the country as the Obama administration has struggled to deal with the border crisis from an onslaught unaccompanied alien children arriving in the U.S.

New England voters are more opposed to illegal immigration than the rest of the country, with nearly 80 percent saying illegal immigrants threaten U.S. believes and customs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The poll showed that 70 percent of Americans nationwide — including 86 percent of Republicans — say illegal immigrants threaten the country’s culture and the economy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...risis-says-sc/