Exclusive—Claudia Tenney Ad: ‘Anthony Brindisi Stands with Nancy Pelosi on Illegal Immigration’

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) released a new ad exclusively obtained by Breitbart News, in which she slams New York Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) for standing with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on illegal immigration.

“Nancy Pelosi and the Washington liberals’ stance on illegal immigration is reckless and dangerous,” the ad charges. “Open borders, abolishing ICE, sanctuary cities, taxpayers benefits for illegal immigrants, putting families at risk, and yet Anthony Brindisi sides with Nancy Pelosi on illegal immigration.”

“In Albany, Brandisi voted to give taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants but voted against ten bills to help our upstate veterans. Anthony Brindisi, illegal immigrants, before upstate New Yorkers,” the campaign concludes.

Raychel Renna, Tenney’s campaign manager, said in a statement on Tuesday:

After voting to give taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants, it’s clear that Anthony Brindisi would further his biggest donor Nancy Pelosi’s agenda on illegal immigration and work with Washington liberals to abolish the ICE. Brindisi has a record in Albany of putting illegal immigrants before our veterans and we can’t trust him to secure our borders.

Pelosi, one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, has called for a fundamental transformation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. In July, a spokesman for Pelosi called for an “immediate and fundamental overhaul” of the agency. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said that the “first thing” Democrats should do if they win the House and the Senate after the 2018 midterm elections is to abolish ICE.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) with an explicit promise to abolish ICE.

Breitbart News reported that abolishing ICE would have set free more than 1.6 million illegal aliens over the last five years. A July Harvard/Harris poll found that nearly three-quarters of swing voters and 59 percent of Democrats do not want ICE to be abolished.

In May 2014, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-NY) and the Veterans’ Committee voted to kill ten bills to benefit veterans sponsored by Republicans without any debate. In the same year, New York State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor (R-NY) said that Brindisi “dutifully followed Silver’s partisan line” to vote to kill the bills without debate.

Lalor said, “If there was any doubt that bills are killed for purely partisan reasons, consider that not a single Republican bill has made it out of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee since 2008.”

The New York Republican added, “This is a shame and a disgrace because defending the country is nonpartisan. Doing right by our veterans when they come home shouldn’t be partisan either.”