Priebus Omits Immigration Reform in Speech to Young Republicans

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus failed to mention the immigration bill that just passed the Senate with help from Republicans John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a weekend address to young Republicans.

“Priebus, a Wisconsin native, is in the middle of a push to hire party employees in every state to focus on reaching non-white and younger voters who have favored Democrats in the last two decades, as Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of six presidential elections,” the Associated Press reported, adding that he “did not explicitly mention the immigration bill.”

Priebus did, however, argue that Republicans need to “show up in the Asian community, the Hispanic community, the African-American community.”

He made his remarks before the Young Republican National Convention held Saturday night in Mobile, Alabama, an annual gathering of youth activists for the party.

“You can’t show up six months before an election,” Priebus said. “We have to be a year-round party.”

“You also have to have candidates that people relate to,” Priebus added. “You have to have people on the ballot that people like, that people understand. In Wisconsin, we call it the beer test.”

RNC spokesman Sean Spicer did not return requests for comment from Breitbart News on why Priebus did not mention the bill or what his stance is on the legislation.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who headlined the conference, railed against the arguments that led to the bill’s Senate passage in his speech.

“Speaking in an aircraft hanger adjacent to the decommissioned USS Alabama, Sessions drew a clear and damning line between the increased importation of low-skilled workers that the Senate bill would effect, and stagnating wages and high unemployment for current Americans,” National Review‘s Charles C.W. Cooke wrote, before directly quoting Sessions.

“The media and corporations have decided what we should do,” Sessions declared. “In the course of this debate, we’ve heard from voices that to survive Republicans must forget the idea of lawfulness.” 

Cooke noted that Sessions argued that this idea “sure doesn’t sound like a policy a smart party would advocate.”

“No political party has as its aim to lower wages,” Sessions said.

Earlier this year, Priebus’s RNC issued its “autopsy” report on what it thought went wrong in the 2012 election. Near the top of the list of fixes, it recommended passing some sort of immigration reform.