As Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announces that he will not be seeking re-election, Breitbart News looks back on the 15 times the pro-amnesty senator represented illegal aliens and foreign workers instead of American workers’ interests.
1. Flake’s Gang of Eight Amnesty
In 2013, Flake was one of four GOP Senators who allied with Democrats to push the cheap-labor-and-amnesty “comprehensive immigration reform bill.” The 2013 bill gutted the 1986 law, effectively making it legal for employers to hire illegals, until media coverage forced the “Gang of Eight” to restore the 1986 provision, as Breitbart News reported. Flake’s bill died in 2014, and it was so unpopular it helped the Democrats lose 10 Senate seats in the 2014 election.
2. Jeff Flake: ‘There Must Always’ Be Low-Skilled Immigration to U.S.
“There must always” be a flow low-skilled immigration to the United States, no matter its impact on American workers, according to Republican establishment figure Senator Jeff Flake, Breitbart News reported.
3. Jeff Flake: GOP Should Embrace Pro-Amnesty ‘Autopsy’ Report
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wants Republicans to embrace the foolish Republican National Committee’s (RNC) “autopsy” report, which was released after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss and recommended amnesty for illegal immigrants as its only policy solution, Breitbart News reported.
4. Jeff Flake: ‘I’ll Take the Globalist Moniker, Thank You’
“Seemingly overnight, the word globalist became a grave insult among people in my party who also call themselves ‘conservative,’” he reportedly writes in his new book, according to the Arizona Republic. “… In this country, we are less than 5 percent of the world’s population. We are 20 percent of the world’s economic output. And if we don’t trade, we don’t grow. Given the alternatives, I’ll take the globalist moniker, thank you,” Breitbart News reported.
5. Jeff Flake Obstructing Border Patrol to Protect His Family’s Illegal Alien Farm Workers
Before going to college, “my life was made far more difficult during the middle of summer when the Border Patrol would raid our farm,” Flake wrote in his new autobiography, titled “Conscience of a Conservative,” which slams President Donald Trump, as Breitbart News reported. Flake continued:
“Sometimes the Border Patrol would send small planes to search our alfalfa fields for migrants. When I would hear the distinctive whine of the Cessna [search aircraft], I’d hop on a horse, put on a hat that would obscure my head, and try to divert the Border Patrol away from our workers — a decoy in the game of cat and mouse.”
6. Jeff Flake: ‘You Can’t Cut Immigration’
Despite legal immigration and illegal immigration being a burden on American workers’ wages and jobs, Flake has continuingly denounced any cuts to legal immigration, where the U.S. admits more than one million foreign nationals a year.
“You can’t cut immigration, legal immigration, in half,” Flake told NBC’s “Meet the Press” August 6, as Breitbart News reported.
7. Jeff Flake: ‘We Know Very Well The Value of Migrant Labor’
“While I agree we ought to move in the direction of some other countries like Australia and Canada in terms of merit-based visas, the overall number cut — I think this would cut it to about half of our legal immigration — just isn’t the right direction for the economy,” Flake told CNN, adding that employers still want to hire cheap, unskilled foreign workers, Breitbart News reported. He said:
“We know very well — in Arizona, in particular — the value of migrant labor. I grew up on a ranch in Snowflake, Arizona. I grew up working next to migrant labor. I always felt they were making America better, and we are better off because of their hard work.”
8. Jeff Flake Pretends DACA Illegal Aliens Are Children
As Pew Research Center analyzed, the average age of DACA recipients is 24-years-old, far from the young age that Democrat and Republican establishment politicians like Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) have made the group of illegal aliens out to be, as Breitbart News reported.
9. Jeff Flake Supports Loophole Giving Illegal Aliens Immediate Welfare Access
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) backed down from a previous promise his spokeswoman made to Breitbart News that he would consider voting in favor of amendments to the Senate’s immigration bill that would close a loophole allowing illegal immigrants immediate access to state and local welfare.
10. Jeff Flake: DACA Illegal Aliens ‘Should Not Be Punished’
“There are 800,000 DACA kids, kids who were brought across the border, the median age I think is six years old for those 800,000 when they came across the border, they should not be punished for the sins of their parents,” Flake told CNN, as Breitbart News reported. “That’s the basic principle we ought to follow. They are in school, some graduated and worked almost all of them, some 90 percent of them are in the work force. To remove them from the country, to split up families like this is just not the way we ought to go.”
11. Jeff Flake: Suck It Up And Pass TPP
Flake acknowledged that globalist trade policies are currently unpopular because many American workers have been devastated by the negative impact of these trade deals. Flake says that it’s been challenging for politicians to get voters to ignore these losses and instead focus on how these trade deals have benefited companies, which have reaped the rewards of cheaper goods, as Breitbart News reported.
12. Flake’s Strong Opposition to Pro-American RAISE Act
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) introduced the specific plan, known as the “RAISE Act.” President Donald Trump endorsed the plan and said the legislation “will reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars,” among other things, as Breitbart News reported.
Flake derided the plan, saying the current legal immigration system, where the U.S. admits more than one million low-skilled legal immigrants a year, must continue:
When President Trump embraced a proposal this month that would cut legal immigration by 50 percent, I spoke out against it, thinking of the immigrant workers I grew up with. When re-evaluating immigration policy, it is right to give priority, through a point system or otherwise, to those who have skills and abilities unique to the new economy. We did this in 2013, in the bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate. But there must always be a place in America for those whose only initial credentials are a strong back and an eagerness to use it.
13. Jeff Flake’s Gang of Eight Amnesty Would Have “Hollowed Out the Middle Class,” Sessions Says
The “Gang of Eight” pro-immigration legislation Flake referred to in the op-ed would have legalized the estimated 12 to 30 million living in the U.S. Under the amnesty plan, then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said Flake’s amnesty plan would have “hollowed out the middle class” by legalizing millions of illegal aliens, further depressing U.S. wages, and making it harder for Americans to find work. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies confirmed Sessions’ sentiment, Breitbart News reported.
14. Jeff Flake Opposes Border Wall to Protect Americans
“Obviously all of us believe in border security,” Flake told CNN, as Breitbart News reported. “It depends on what he means by the wall, and we still haven’t seen what he means by the wall. If that’s a metaphor for border security, we can certainly support that. If he’s talking about a solitary brick and mortar 2,000-mile edifice on the border, then no and nobody ought to support that. We haven’t seen what the president is really talking about when he talks about the wall.”
15. Jeff Flake Eulogizes His Pro-Immigration, Pro-Free Trade Dogma, Despite It’s Detriment to American Workers
Flake said that he no longer could serve as a conservative in a party that no longer valued free trade or immigration, Breitbart News reported.
“It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative, who believes in limited government and free markets, devoted to free trade, pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party,” Flake said, his voice trembling with emotion.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.