Republicans who want border defended..glad to see Steele ousted as RNC chair

January 15, 2011


On Friday, the national Republican Party, booted Michael Steele, and chose Wisconsin party chief Reince Priebus as the new party chair. From the start, Steele had been on shaky ground with party conservatives and a controversial meeting last year, may have been the final straw.

In April 2010, then-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele met with several illegal alien advocacy groups. After the meeting, the pro-amnesty group known as the Center for Community change put out the following press release:

“Today, ten leaders with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) met with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to discuss the future of comprehensive immigration reform in the Republican Party. They walked away with a commitment from Steele to work with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and the party's leadership to enlist another Republican senator's support for comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform.

We are encouraged by this first step," said Pramila Jayapal, executive director of OneAmerica, and meeting participant. "Chairman Steele clearly understands that the future of the Republican Party is dim if his party continues to play politics with immigration reform rather than come to the table to work on practical solutions to our broken immigration system. But now we need to see if Republicans will deliver additional cosponsors on the bill before April 30.

The participants represented their viewpoints as grassroots, immigrant, Latino and business leaders and urged Chairman Steele to show leadership and stressed the importance of increasing support for immigration reform as a positive step toward broadening his party's base. Chairman Steele also committed to issuing a public statement in support of immigration reform.â€