Rep. Paul Ryan was about to announce that he had enough quiet GOP support to pass a nation-changing amnesty bill in June 2014 — but he was blocked when primary voters in Virginia’s 7th district ejected Majority Leader Eric Cantor, according to a PBS documentary.
Ryan and Florida GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart had gradually persuaded a majority of GOP legislators to back a still-secret bill that likely included Ryan’s top priorities — amnesty for nearly all the 11 million illegal immigrants, plus a mechanism to allow companies to hire an unlimited number of foreign workers in place of Americans, including the 4.4 million Americans who turn 18 each year.
If House Speaker John Boehner had scheduled a floor vote, Democrats likely would have backed Ryan’s bill. Once returned to the majority by the subsequent wave of naturalized migrants, the Democrats — as they are now doing in California and in President Barack Obama’s White House — would solidify their power by gradually legalizing more illegal migrants, alongside the almost 1 million legal migrants that are given citizenship each year.
Ryan assembled the list of GOP amnesty supporters, dubbed a “whip count,” after a go-ahead from Boehner.
“In our conversations with folks, we started to whip it, and we were asking ‘Yes? No?’ and we were getting yeses,” Cesar Gonzalez, chief of staff for Diaz-Balert, told the camera. By June 9, “the speaker already knew what our count was,” he said.
“It is Monday June 9th. After months of work, and countless one-on-one conversations, Paul Ryan and Mario Diaz-Balart, have carefully crafted a bill they know the majority of Republicans can agree on,” the voiceover declares on the video, which aired last night.
“They have the votes. They make an appointment to see Boehner, on Thursday,” June 12, says the announcer.
Tuesday, June 10th, primary season is almost over. Washington is slowing down a little. The Diaz-Balart office meets for drinks after work to celebrate their whip-count. Then, is it 9 PM and a piece of news almost unimaginable in Washington breaks – a primary race that no one is even watching. [Rep.] Eric Cantor, the [GOP] House Majority Leader, the guy widely expected to take over Boehner’s job, has just lost his primary to a political unknown.
Dave Brat, the challenger, got a huge campaign boost from conservative radio host, Laura Ingraham adopted him and made a hard line on immigration his main campaign issue… It was Brat’s opposition to immigration that got all the credit.
“Not exactly what we had planned,” Gonzales tells the camera.
“Before the [fall 2014] meltdown the Southwestern border, it is fair to say there was a majority of Republicans who wanted to take it up now,” said South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, who supported passage of an immigration and foreign-worker bill. “I was absolutely convinced that the Republicans and Democrats in the House wanted to fix the problem,” he said, adding “that’s kind of invigorating.” Companies in Mulvaney’s district rely heavily on low-wage migrant labor – not American-built machinery – for agricultural work.
Ryan is now trying to win the House Speakership. If he gets the job, he would have the power to introduce and pass a more radical amnesty-and-open-borders bill, including a bill with an “any willing worker” provision that would allow employers to hire foreigners if white-collar and blue-collar Americans decline the wages offered by the employer.
The video-makers closely followed amnesty-advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez for a year, and filmed meetings between Gutierrez, Diaz-Balert and their staffers, plus allied lobbyists.
The video-makers made minimal effort to track business’ financial calculations, what the public preferred, or opposition from pro-American legislators and advocates.
The GOP’s business allies strongly back immigration, because it provides them with a pool of new workers, plus a huge stream of new, taxpayer-funded consumers.
In 2013, for example, Obama and the 1965 immigration law added at least 2 million new workers, and perhaps 3 million extra consumers, to the nation’s labor and consumer marketplaces, even as 4.4 million young Americans began looking for jobs.
Wages flatlined, and the percentage of native-born Americans with jobs fell slightly that year. Correspondingly, profits spiked and stock-prices shot up 26 percent, adding $5 trillion in value to Wall Street.