RUSH: As for the new immigration regulations, many stories on this today. Depending on where you go, you’ll find varying levels of panic. In the Breitbart version of the story, “Department of Homeland Security Removes Obama’s ‘Handcuffs’ on Border Patrol Agents.” Essentially where we are right now, we are back to the rule of law now. The gloves are off, we are allowed to do our job. That’s what Border Patrol agents are saying in reaction to the new immigration actions that have been taken by President Trump.
“DHS Secretary John F. Kelly lifted most of the restrictions imposed on Border Patrol agents under the previous administration and ordered Border Patrol agents expand their efforts to enforce laws against illegal border crossings. The order came in a memo obtained by Breitbart Texas from DHS officials and discontinued President Obama’s ‘catch and release’ program.”
All this is, folks, it’s common-sensical as anything would be. It focuses on people who have committed crimes, who’ve been deported and come back, people who are about to be charged with crimes, people who’ve done anything illegally. If they’re here illegally and have engaged in illegal behavior, they’re going back. It’s nothing more than the enforcement of existing law. And the left is running around, “These are not our values. This is not who we are. Our values are being raped right before our very eyes.”
New York Times: “New Trump Deportation Rules Allow Far More Expulsions.” They’re not happy. Another New York Times story: “Mr. Trump’s ‘Deportation Force’ Prepares an Assault on American Values.” That’s a New York Times editorial. The deportation, it’s simply enforcing existing laws. We told you yesterday that is all this is. And in fact there’s an exemption they’re thinking about, they’re thinking about an exemption for the DREAMers. And I want to tell you where I come down on that.
A lot of people think that Trump’s caving because if you allow the DREAMers to stay, we’re talking 750,000 DREAMers, kids, who each have two parents who could come in. Look, this is a-no-win. Nobody’s gonna win anything by deporting a bunch of kids that we let in, whoever did, Obama, whatever. If we can get the strict enforcement of existing immigration law, if we can get enhanced and increased border protection, if we can start doing what we are supposed to do in defending this border, and if we can prevent amnesty from being extended to all of these adult illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or are on the verge of committing crimes or committed crimes and have been released, what have you, then the DREAMer thing may be an acceptable payoff. It could well be, if all the rest of this stuff happens. We’ll have to see how it all manifests itself.
Look, there’s a caveat here. In order for the DREAMer thing to be acceptable, the rest of this stuff has to be by the book. No amnesty for anybody other than the DREAMers. We enforce existing law. We turn the Border Patrol agents loose to find people they already know exist and they already know where they are and deport them. People that have committed crimes, people that have been accused of crimes, they’re subject to deportation. People who’ve been convicted of committing crimes.
These are all people that are not citizens. They’re illegally here in the first place, and deporting them is exactly according to existing law. If that happens, and if they move on the wall, if they move on strict border control, then the DREAMer thing is a worthwhile compromise. You’re looking at me like you’re incredulous.
He thinks I’ve set off an earthquake here. I don’t know what the politics are of rounding up a bunch of kids. I know. I know each of these DREAMers has two parents, and if you have 750,000 DREAMers, that’s the number, then you gotta multiply it by two or three. I understand that. But even after you do that, we’re not talking 11, 12, 15, 20 million here. We’re not talking comprehensive immigration reform.
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RUSH: No, I’m just saying that the DREAMers, if they’re properly defined, if you properly define DREAMers and leave it at that, it’s a small price to pay to get the problem under control. And there’s gonna be have to be some price to pay for getting it under control. You look at the memo. Kelly put out yesterday, the Homeland Security guy, put out a six-page memo, single-spaced memo detailing the new guidance.
And you know what, you can sum it up in one sentence: Henceforth, the United States shall be governed by the laws of the United States. Now, if they do that — that’s all that’s happening here. That’s what we’ve been asking for. We don’t need new immigration, comprehensive or otherwise. Just enforce what’s on the books! If they do that, it’s gonna make a huge, huge difference, and the Border Patrol sounds eager to get going.
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RUSH: Okay. I’m gonna do phone calls for the rest of the half hour, ’cause people have been patiently waiting, and it’s just not nice of me to keep people on hold for so long. Just one thing first. We have a montage here of Hillary and Bill Clinton talking about immigration reform, starting in 1995 and 2006. This is when Hillary is a senator and thinking about running for president, and Bill Clinton as president. So when you hear Clinton, he’s talking in January of 1995; Hillary is in October of 2006. Here is our montage…
CLINTON 1995: We are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years.
HILLARY 2006: If they’ve committed transgressions of whatever kind, they should be obviously deported.
CLINTON 1995: We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes.
HILLARY 2006: … secure or borders with technology, personnel, uh, physical barriers if necessary.
CLINTON 1995: That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure or borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before.
HILLARY 2006: We need to try to incentivize Mexico to do more.
RUSH: This is exactly what Trump has said. This is exactly what we’re doing! And Bill and Hillary are on record numerous times there as suggesting it themselves first. And all this is, is the enforcement of U.S. law. Look at… To show you how far gone this is, look at the cacophony of anguish at just the prospect of enforcing the law. This is not… Trump isn’t even proposing anything new. That was in Clinton’s first State of the Union speech, my amigos. Hillary never did the State of the Union. The State of the Pantsuit speech…
But nevertheless it’s identical to what Trump was saying, and so all that’s happened here as the result of the six page memo that General Kelly put out yesterday, John Kelly says, “Henceforth the United States will be governed by the laws of the United States.” That’s all he needed to say. It took him six pages to say that in order to deal with whatever objections that might occur, and there will be plenty of ’em now. Just to show you how far gone this whole immigration thing is. I don’t want anybody misunderstand me on this DREAMer business.
That’s out the window if we don’t do everything. If we don’t enforce every immigration law on the books, if we don’t round up all of these bad actors and criminals and murderers and thieves, purse snatchers, rapists or whatever. We know they’re there! We catch them; we release them. They get deported; they come back. We round them all up. We get rid of them. We clean up America’s neighborhoods and then we secure the border. If Trump follows through on everything that he said he was gonna do in terms of shoring up the border and stopping this deluge of incoming illegal immigration.
Nobody, nobody is opposed to immigration. That’s another thing that’s really bad that’s happened in this debate. “Immigration” has now been misdefined to equal anybody who has gotten into the country any way. That is called “immigration.” Just coming here, just arriving, just getting here is what the left now calls “immigration,” and it isn’t. Immigration is a legal process that must be followed, and people that doesn’t must be thrown back out, sent back out, and they must come in the right way — and we have control over who gets in.
We have control. It’s our country.
We control the borders. We determine who gets in.
Not the Democrat Party, not the Republican Party, not the left, the United States government at the time using existing law determines who gets in and how many. And it’s not an endless number. There is a limit, and it’s based on assimilation. It has to be based on assimilation. IF you’re gonna let whatever number of people in, you’ve got to be assured the people you’re letting in love America and want to become Americans and that they want to learn English, and if you can’t confirm that about them, they don’t qualify.
That’s not cruel.
That’s not mean.
That is simply preserving who we are.
That is actually preserving our values. Our values, American culture is distinct in the world, and it’s rooted in our founding documents, proclamation of the freedom inherent in each individual at birth, not by government edict. And if we don’t maintain that, if we don’t preserve that as a primary American fundamental value, then the country’s gonna end up being something it was not founded to be, which is what many in this country want to happen. And immigration — wanton, open borders — is the fastest way to undermine the founding of this country.
That’s why so many in the left are in favor of it. So Trump was very clear and very precise throughout the campaign, and he created no confusion about this. People who voted for Donald Trump think they know exactly what he intended to do because he spelled it out. If he does all that, gets a handle on incoming, returns us to the rule of American law? Then okay.
Now back to the phones, because, as I say, I want to get as many in this half hour as I can because people have been holding.
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RUSH: Koko at the website sent me this today. I would not have seen this if Koko hadn’t sent it. I don’t know how Koko ran into it, but he did. Well, I might have run into it, but maybe not. It’s in the Weekly Standard. It’s a column by Fred Barnes. Now, before I get into what this is about, let me reset the table in terms of what this is about. Since 2010, the Democrats have lost 1200 seats nationwide.
The Republicans control the White House. The Republicans control the Senate. The Republicans control the House. The Republicans have their biggest opportunity in a generation to implement conservative policies and make them stick, and the greatest opportunity to shape the Supreme Court for multiple generations. The 2018 midterms look so bad right now for the Democrats… I know anything can change, but the Democrats have a nearly impossible task.
It could well be that if a lot of things happen, if Trump moves his agenda, and if the economy goes gangbusters and if tax reform happens, if much of what Trump said begins to happen, the Republicans could end up with 60 seats in the Senate in 2018. They could end up with 58. They’re clearly going to win. The Democrats have 25 seats to defend, and 18 of them are in states that Trump won by double digits. So what is this column? It’s a column by Fred Barnes. And it’s entitled, “Houston, Republicans Have a Problem.”
And here is the relevant pull quote. “There’s an untold story from the 2016 election that should encourage Democrats and worry Republicans. It happened in Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city in population and the hometown of former President George H. W. Bush. To be precise it’s Harris County, Texas — which consists mostly of Houston — that we’re talking about.
“On November 8, Hillary Clinton lost Texas to Donald Trump by 9 percentage points. But she won Harris County by an astonishing 13 percentage points. And that’s not all. Republicans lost every county-wide race (including incumbents) and 24 of 24 judgeships. The son of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick was among Republican judges who were ousted.
“Democratic strategists are relying on a one-word political panacea to boost the party in overtaking Republicans: Hispanics. They’re already a plurality — 42 percent — in Harris County. Whites are 31 percent, blacks 20 percent, and Asians 7 percent. And the Hispanic population continues to grow. Democrats control the big Texas cities — Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, to name three — thanks to Hispanic voters.”
So Mr. Barnes’ point here is — and Fred Barnes, by the way, is a member in good standing of what we all would call the Republican establishment. And as a member in good standing, he probably is voicing sentiments shared by many in the Washington establishment on the Republican side who are obsessed that Trump’s ramping up his immigration plan — I think that’s what this story’s about. Remember, the Washington establishment is just hell-bent on comprehensive immigration reform, slash, amnesty.
The Republican Party, because most of its donors are of this frame of mind, elected Republicans, people in the House and Senate today, if they had their druthers, there would be a comprehensive immigration reform bill and there would be amnesty granted to every illegal immigrant in the country. Republican donors want this and many Republicans like Mr. Barnes here think this is the only way we’re ever going to be able to win elections again.
Now, the Republicans were saying that exact thing before this election. The same establishment were saying before the election if we don’t reach out to Hispanics, and if we don’t come to grips with immigration, we’re never gonna win the White House again. Yet we just did, on a what? Not an amnesty platform, that’s for sure. But, yeah, I guess you can take Houston, microcosm, and say that it’s a fortune teller of sorts.
But it seems to me as I read this, and I’d have to talk to Mr. Barnes to be certain in my analysis here, but it seems to me that nothing’s changed. Even though the Republicans won this election, they still think that if we don’t do amnesty, and if we don’t grant amnesty to these whatever numbers of millions of illegals here, andif we don’t do whatever we have to do to show that we love Hispanics and we want ’em, that we don’t have a prayer in the future.
I can understand this before the election. And I halfway understand where Mr. Barnes is going here. This is strictly party politics. And they don’t consider Trump a Republican, by the way, in the establishment. He’s not a conservative, and he’s not a Republicans. He’s a populist. You know, he’s a nationalist. But I found this fascinating, that with everything going on out there that this is still at the top of some people’s minds in the establishment out there.