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Drum roll…..the long awaited GOP principles on illegal immigration were presented today to the House GOP Conference at their annual [aptly-named] retreat. Sorry to disappoint you but there is nothing new under the sun. Their framework is a mirror image of the Senate “Gang of 8” bill, albeit cloaked in even more deceptive and disingenuous language in order to distract conservatives with shiny objects. Let’s go through some of the text:

• After proposing broad amnesty, the document says that” none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented.” That might sound like it was written by the Tea Party, but in reality every GOP leader has made it clear that enforcement triggers mean something ambiguous after the “probationary” legal status is granted.
• Legalization before amnesty is the key point. Everything else is window dressing. Once they are legalized there is no turning back. There will never be any leverage to implement the universally agreed-upon security measures thereafter. This is beyond Lucy and the football already.
• “There will be no special path to citizenship for individuals who broke our nation’s immigration laws – that would be unfair to those immigrants who have played by the rules and harmful to promoting the rule of law.” This is the big lie. Once legal status is granted before the enforcement is in place and the magnets are removed, they will get citizenship. If there is this much pressure to legalize them when they are totally illegal, there is no way they will permanently reside here without citizenship for more than a year. At that point, Chuck Schumer will push for citizenship. Furthermore, the notion that this is not a special pathway is nonsense. The traditional pathway is in the country of origin. Staying in the country is the special pathway.
• The Dream Act is full amnesty, a disaster and a farce. It is particularly irresponsible to push that without asking for changes to birthright citizenship and the welfare state in exchange. They will be eligible for immediate legal status and citizenship shortly thereafter. These people are largely poor and low-skilled. They would be eligible for the entire array of welfare programs. Moreover, once you have amnesty for “Dreamers” it is defacto amnesty for everyone else because A) they can bring in family members and B) anyone can potentially be eligible, so ICE would have to suspend all deportations to allow illegals a reasonable opportunity to present their case. Sans a proposal to change birthright citizenship first, the Dream Act would expand our anchor baby magnet to an “anchor teenager” phenomenon.
• “One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents.” Here is another big lie. They claim that we can’t “punish” children nor could we withhold legal status from anyone because it is not humane. Yet, they proceed to claim “we must ensure now that when immigration reform is enacted, there will be a zero tolerance policy for those who cross the border illegally or overstay their visas in the future. “ This is internally incoherent. Once you telegraph the message that as soon as someone successfully comes here illegally and puts down roots, we will not have the stomach to deport them, why would that change during the next cycle? If amnesty for illegal children is a “founding principle,” then we have to have a perpetual amnesty for such children in perpetuity. The reality is that unless we implement all enforcement long before any amnesty, we will continue the perennial cycle of open borders and sympathy-driven amnesty. And that is exactly how they want it.
• The best way to solve a problem is to first honestly admit there is a problem. By refusing to call them illegals, and instead opting for euphemisms like “Individuals Living Outside the Rule of Law,” they are showing that there is no commitment to clamp down on illegal immigration in the future.
• There is no mention of a border fence. A physical fence is the only thing proven to work. Also, it is not subject to manipulation or “prosecutorial discretion.” It actually works, and that is why they don’t want it.
• There is no mention of the 800-pound gorilla – the magnets of welfare and unqualified birthright citizenship. The only way to offer an amnesty [after enforcement] without repeating the mistakes of the past is to finally cut off the incentives to come here illegally in the future. All they have to do is come here and drop a baby on American soil. At that point, the baby is an American citizen and can secure welfare on behalf of the family. Additionally, this is the same flaw with any temporary worker program. If they have kids, these workers will never be temporary. Also, the whole idea of a guest worker program is so the special interest lobbies can secure slave wages on behalf of agribusiness. With American-born children they would have the need and the ability to secure welfare payments.
• Finally, it is dangerous and irresponsible to begin pushing any of this before Obama begins to follow the current laws. We are ostensibly advertising for people to come here from across the border and overstay their visas. If there is a long period of time when legal status is offered before the Fence is built and Exit-Entry is put into place, millions more will flood our country. Once deportations are ostensibly halted, there will be no way or desire to sort out those who came later, and God-forbid, actually deport those who came for the free ride.

House Republican leaders are giving their support to a limited path to legal status for some illegal immigrants, in a move Democrats said could open the door to a deal on comprehensive immigration legislation.

Instead, it said immigrants living here illegally could remain and live legally if they pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, learn to speak English and understand U.S. civics, and can support themselves without access to welfare.

But GOP leaders made clear that border security must be improved first.

"None of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented," the document said.

Nevertheless, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a big advocate for immigrant legislation on the Senate side, said the announcement could smooth the way for a deal on legislation. The Senate passed an immigration bill last year.

"While these standards are certainly not everything we would agree with, they leave a real possibility that Democrats and Republicans, in both the House and Senate, can in some way come together and pass immigration reform that both sides can accept. It is a long, hard road but the door is open," he said. Read more about House GOP leaders back limited path to legal status for illegal immigrants

This could get ugly.

Thursday at 4:30pm in Cambridge, Maryland, Speaker John Boehner will unveil an outline of the party's immigration stance to rank-and-file members that includes “legal status” for millions of illegal immigrants.

Boehner hand-selected members to help lead the discussion, including California Rep. Jeff Denham, the first Republican to endorse the House Democrats' immigration bill.

But as much as Boehner is dreaming of a big, bipartisan immigration deal – senior GOP officials say they are surprised just how much the Ohio Republican is “leaning in” on the issue – top immigration hawks are themselves ready to raise hell.

“We’re going to have a very heavy discussion on illegal immigration,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Breitbart News, adding that Boehner's critics have organized a plan to “speak as aggressively and loudly and articulately as we can in opposing this nonsense of amnesty for 10-20 million illegals which would cause great harm to the country and destroy the Republican Party.”

The meeting is momentous enough that Senator Jeff Sessions flouted congressional protocol, hand-delivering anti-amnesty talking points to members ahead of the closed-door session.

Boehner has been carefully working on the issue with the help of a new top immigration aide, Rebecca Tallent, who was formerly Senator John McCain's top amnesty lieutenant.

The surprise hire came in December, when immigration reform was widely considered on life support. Now insiders mark the move as the beginning of Boehner's renewed push.

“He wouldn't have brought her on – he didn't do this for like, a PR thing. Whose he getting good PR from? He wouldn't have brought her on unless he really thought that this was a problem that we need to deal with. And she wouldn't have come on board unless she thought that this was real,” Rep. Mario Diaz Balart told Breitbart News.

Tallent has been helping craft immigration “principles” to be unveiled today in secret.

“I haven’t seen the principles at all,” said Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Lankford, as House Policy Committee Chair, is the fifth highest-ranking member of the House.

Today, after weeks of anticipation, all will be out in the open – at least inside the immigration showdown at Cambridge. Read more about Showdown: Boehner to reveal conservative immigration 'principals,' conservatives ready to rumble

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said Friday that a Republican Party that ignores the nation's Hispanics and balks at immigration overhaul does so at its political peril as Republicans pressured the House GOP to act this year....

While the document has given new hope to immigration proponents, opposition still remains strong in the House, where many Republicans fear granting amnesty to those here illegally, worry about the political fallout in their districts and oppose giving President Barack Obama a long-sought legislative victory.... Read more about Bloomberg: Immigration reform key to GOP future

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are preparing to unveil their own broad template for overhauling the nation’s immigration system this week, potentially offering a small opening for President Obama and congressional Democrats to pass bipartisan legislation before the end of the year.

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders are expected to release a one-page statement of immigration principles this week at their annual retreat in Cambridge, Md., according to aides with knowledge of the plan. The document is expected to call for border security and enforcement measures, as well as providing a path to legal status — but not citizenship — for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, the aides said.

The Republican effort comes as Mr. Obama is expected to push once again for an overhaul of the immigration system in his State of the Union address Tuesday, and as lawmakers from both parties describe immigration as one of the few potential areas for bipartisan compromise before the end of the current Congress.

“The principles they lay out I’m sure won’t satisfy everybody,” Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, said at an immigration forum on Friday. But, he added, “if we can make some compromises here for the good of the country, I think we have a very good chance for the first time in a long time of changing something that is really damaging all of us.”

The Senate, led by Democrats, passed a broad bipartisan measure in June to overhaul immigration that included a 13-year path to citizenship. But the legislation stalled in the Republican-controlled House, where some of the party’s more conservative members oppose any form of legal status as “amnesty.”

But heading into the three-day Republican retreat, even some of the most ardent conservatives say consensus is forming around an immigration package that would include several separate bills on border security; a clampdown against the hiring of undocumented workers; expanded guest-worker programs; a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children; and a path to legal status for undocumented workers with family ties to citizens or employer sponsors.

The White House has said it wants a path to citizenship for both children and adults in any new immigration legislation.

“The president’s pathway to citizenship is a stumbling block,” said Representative Andy Harris, a conservative Republican who represents the Maryland district that will host the retreat. “But legalization with no path to citizenship can gain some votes.”

Representative Peter T. King, a Republican of New York and a longtime critic of proposals to change the immigration system, said it was significant that both the third-ranking Republican in the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, and the Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, had voiced support in recent days for legal status for some immigrants living in the country illegally — and have taken very little heat for their remarks on either side of the aisle.

But the divisions that have slowed progress in the House have not been entirely mended. Representative Raúl R. Labrador, a Republican of Idaho and once a leading immigration negotiator in the House, said it would be a mistake to push forward.

“The president has shown he’s not willing to work with us on immigration,” Mr. Labrador said. “It’s not worth having a party divided when we have so many issues we can come together on.”

On Thursday, aides to House conservatives who oppose the leadership’s plan gathered in the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a fierce opponent of the immigration push, to plot a strategy to torpedo it.

Critics worry that House Republican leaders and Senate Democrats are essentially negotiating a final deal, bypassing formal House-Senate negotiations, where conservatives had hoped to derail the process. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, one of the Democratic architects of the Senate bill, said: “One thing is certain, just as with the budget, at some point both the House and the Senate will have to sit down and resolve all the contentious issues.” Read more about House Republicans to Offer Broad Immigration Plan

“E-Verify is largely voluntary, so the fact that we now have half a million employers enrolled shows significant confidence in the program."

USCIS (a branch of DHS) says:  “In the past decade, E-Verify participation has increased 400 percent. E-Verify is now used nationwide at more than 1.5 million hiring sites, with more than 1,400 new employers joining each week. Additionally, E-Verify is one of the federal government’s highest-rated services for customer satisfaction.”

There is a searchable database of employers using E-Verify at http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify/about-program/e-verify-employers-search-tool. Searches can be filtered for name of employer, or state, city, etc. A search for all Oregon employers shows that over 3,000 employers in the state are now participating. You can search by name of your town to see which employers locally are using E-Verify.

OFIR NOTE:  Please make every attempt to support businesses using E-Verify and tell them why you chose them over a competitor.  As with anything, please do your own research about the business to be certain you are making the right choice. Read more about Half a Million Employers Now Enrolled in E-Verify