Report: Tom Cotton's Strong Influence Leaves Chuck Schumer Unwilling to Negotiate on Immigration

Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) strong influence over the national debate on immigration policy and President Trump’s administration has left Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unwilling to broker an immigration deal unless the populist conservative Senator is left out of the conversation.

A POLITICO report revealed the level to which Cotton and his close ally Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) — both staunch pro-American immigration reformers who want to see legal immigration levels reduced to benefit American workers — have gotten under the skin of Schumer and Democrats.

When it comes to striking a deal between the Republican establishment, the “America First” wing of the Republican Party, Democrats, and the Trump administration on the issue of nearly 800,000 illegal aliens who have been shielded from deportation by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Schumer allegedly told the president that he will not negotiate a deal if Cotton is involved.

The report stated:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told President Trump this week that there will be no deal on Dreamers if hard-line conservative GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is involved, according to several congressional sources.

Schumer also told the president that he was not being well served by White House staffers during negotiations over the fate of 700,000 young immigrants who face potential deportation if no deal is reached to protect them.

Schumer and Democrats, according to POLITICO, are greatly annoyed that Cotton and Perdue corrected the record on a White House meeting last week in which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and others claimed Trump called African nations and El Salvador “shithole” countries.

“In regards to Senator Durbin’s accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest,” Cotton and Perdue said in a statement.

Schumer and his open borders allies are also bugged by the fact that Cotton and Perdue — who introduced the Trump-endorsed, legal immigration-cutting RAISE Act last year — have been devoted to Trump’s popular pro-American immigration agenda.

That economic nationalist agenda includes an end to the process known as “chain migration” – whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. – as well as an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery program, which randomly gives out 50,000 visas every year to foreign nationals who win a lottery to permanently resettle in the U.S.

Unlike members of the Republican establishment, such as Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Cotton and Perdue have not caved in negotiations with Democrats on an immigration deal.

When an expansive amnesty plan by the “Gang of Six” — which includes Flake, Graham, Durbin, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) — was revealed this week, Cotton, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen shut the proposal down, blasting it for not including an end to chain migration, the Visa Lottery, and full funding for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cotton, seen as the heir to Sessions’ pro-American immigration agenda in the Senate, told POLITICO in an interview that the likely reason Schumer did not want him to be part of White House negotiations on immigration was “probably because I would get a good deal, and he wants a bad deal.”

Trump, Cotton, and Perdue have been successful in getting some members of the Republican establishment, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Graham, to oppose chain migration, which has imported more than nine million foreign nationals to the U.S. in the last decade, a figure that exceeds two years of American births and the population of New York City.

In an explosive report, Breitbart News revealed that chain migration, if not ended, is expected to add between seven and eight million new foreign-born voters to the U.S. electorate – a scheme that favors Democrats as immigrants, specifically Hispanics and Asians, who vote 2-to-1 for Democrats over Republicans.

Nonetheless, chain migration and the Visa Lottery are overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people.

In a new poll by Pulse Opinion Research, nearly 60 percent of likely voters want to see chain migration ended, while 60 percent also want to see the Visa Lottery program ended. That same poll showed that 60 percent of likely voters said legal immigration levels should be reduced to 500,000 admissions a year or even less – a plan that Trump, Cotton, and Perdue have championed.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 43.7 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population. Mass immigration to the U.S. has kept American wages stagnant, while depressing job prospects for poor, working, and middle class communities.