Thread: In N.J., GOP Senate candidate endorses immigration reform

In N.J., GOP Senate candidate endorses immigration reform

ANDREW SEIDMAN, INQUIRER TRENTON BUREAU

LAST UPDATED: Thursday, September 25, 2014, 10:49 PM
POSTED: Thursday, September 25, 2014, 7:59 PM


Breaking from the antiamnesty, secure-the-border hawkishness coursing through the national Republican Party, New Jersey's GOP nominee for a U.S. Senate seat says he would fight for "comprehensive immigration reform" in Washington.

And like many Republicans, Jeff Bell is claiming the mantle of Ronald Reagan.

"Ronald Reagan once said, 'Latinos are Republicans - they just don't know it yet.' Maybe that's politically incorrect to repeat in 2014," Bell wrote in an e-mail to supporters Wednesday. "But I do agree with the premise behind his assertion: If the Republican Party makes the case to them, Hispanics will vote GOP."

Republican Gov. Christie won 51 percent of the Latino vote when he was reelected last year, although he has not taken a position on federal immigration policy.

Bell, who faces an uphill battle against U.S. Sen. Cory A. Booker (D., N.J.) in November, may lay better claim to Reagan than most. Bell worked on two of Reagan's campaigns, producing TV ads during his first successful run for the presidency in 1980.Other Republicans, both locally (Steve Lonegan) and nationally (U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz), have embraced Reagan but have endorsed immigration policies radically different from Bell's.

Cruz, for one, has opposed a Senate bill that would create a path to citizenship. Bell, who is running a quixotic campaign focused on a return to the gold standard, supports granting citizenship to the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Booker also supports a path to citizenship.

The chances of passing immigration reform plummeted in recent months amid an influx of Central American migrants streaming across the Mexican border.

"Our party has been unwelcoming," Bell wrote, saying Hispanics tend to believe in conservative ideas "that life begins at conception, and marriage is composed of a husband and a wife."

Bell said he would support a "generous, market-based" guest-worker program open to low-skilled workers.

He said the immigration law signed by Reagan in 1986 was flawed because it "left out access for immigrants who want to come here and work temporarily without becoming citizens."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/ne...xZIjT7K66qq.99

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Bell said he would support a "generous, market-based" guest-worker program open to low-skilled workers.

Do you ever wonder if these people do any real research at all, or do they just go for whatever makes their nutso claims sound rational.

Barbara Jordan was the first southern black woman elected to the House of Representatives. When Jordan studied immigration, one of the things that she learned is that "temporary" workers don't return to their home countries. Jordan once said,

"It is the right and responsibility of every democracy to manage immigration for the benefit of all its citizens." C-I-T-I-Z-E-N-S.

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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

to vistalad: you have it exactly right. Often the cracked pot left just invents "facts" as it suites them. Mixing truth with invented "facts" makes it confusing and hard to separate truth from lies.

One of the problems with patriots is that they think everything they say must be supported by empirical verifiable sources.

PATRIOTS STOP WITH THIS OBSESSON ABOUT HARD EVIDENCE. JUST SAY IT. JUST POST IT AS PROVEN. This is what the Marxists left does all of the time. And it has served them well.