David Frum: Paul Ryan As Speaker Will ‘Carry The Day For Obama Immigration Plans’

A former speech-writer for George W. Bush, David Frum, warned Sunday that Rep. Paul Ryan – if elected Speaker – would enact President Barack Obama’s immigration plans.

“Pretty ironic,” the senior editor at The Atlantic tweeted, “if most direct effect of anti-Boehner coup is to carry the day for Obama immigration plans.”

Frum then linked a Breitbart News article documenting Ryan’s career-long ideological devotion to open borders.

In 2013 and 2014, House Speaker John Boehner blocked Obama’s immigration push. In contrast, Ryan is aligned with the Democrats on immigration.

“Everyone knows Paul Ryan is as close to an open borders advocate as the GOP has, right?” Frum wrote.

In the 1990s, for example, Ryan blocked a GOP-led bill to reduce immigration by allying with immigration advocates Cesar Conda and Grover Norquist, plus open-borders lawmakers ex-Rep. Jack Kemp and then-Rep. Sam Brownback. 

 The Washington Times wrote in a 2012 article that Ryan:

“Worked to water down the strict immigration limits in a bill [Rep.] Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, was working to pass in the mid-1990s… As a staffer in Washington, he worked for Jack Kemp and Sen. Sam Brownback — both of whom were part of the Republicans’ pro-immigration wing, and who fought crackdown efforts from within their own party… As a congressman, he voted for a 2002 legalization bill, praised the 2006 Senate immigration bill backed by Mr. Bush and co-sponsored a 2009 Democratic bill that would have legalized immigrant farmworkers.”

As Bloomberg’s John Heilemann reported in 1996, “[Ryan’s] ties to the pro-immigration mafia ran deep. A protégé of [Cesar] Conda and an ally of [Rick] Swartz [founder of the pro-amnesty National Immigration Forum], Ryan was the staffer who had aided Jack Kemp and William Bennett in their crusade against [California’s] Proposition 187.”

In 2013, Ryan worked “every day” to pass Obama’s mass-amnesty bill for all of America’s illegal immigrant population, said pro-amnesty Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

In 2013, Ryan’s ally in the 1990s, Conda, worked as chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio, the main GOP promoter of the amnesty-and-mass-immigration bill. 

Pro-borders activists like Roy Beck worry that if an open-borders ideologue like Paul Ryan is propelled to the Speakership, he would also block legislation – or even messaging – to boost border security.

If Ryan runs for the House Speakership, then pro-border lawmakers, including Rep. Mo Brooks, Rep. Duncan Hunter and Rep. Steve King – and others who have kept a low profile in the recent leadership fights – would likely quickly take a more active role.