Conservative business owner Lauren Boebert, who ousted Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district, says the first step to reforming immigration is securing the United States-Mexico border.
In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Saturday, Boebert said her victory was “an upset for the establishment but a win for freedom-loving patriots who are tired of D.C. politics as usual.”
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Boebert’s campaign against Tipton included slamming him for his support of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would have capped farmworker wages, provided business with an unlimited inflow of H-2A foreign visa workers, and given amnesty to up to 1.25 million illegal aliens.
Boebert, a mother of four boys, said securing the U.S.-Mexico border to cut down illegal immigration is seemingly the step that is skipped in favor of amnesty.
“With the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, it was just a band-aid and our farmworkers didn’t like it,” Boebert said. “They understand that there is a problem with our exit strategy for our migrant workers here and all this did was put a band-aid on it and say ‘Woops, we messed up and now we’re [going to] give millions of illegal immigrants amnesty and not only that, but we need a billion of your taxpayer dollars to provide for their housing.’ So it just was not a conservative stance to take.”
“My hard line is secure the border,” Boebert said. “That is the step that we always seem to skip. The liberals have proven that they want lawlessness and they want open borders. I think we need to build a wall and secure our border. Certainly we need comprehensive immigration reform, but secure the border and then we’ll talk about that.”
Boebert said her victory was a historic win in Colorado where incumbents have for decades won their primaries against challengers.
“This was the first time in Colorado in 48 years that an incumbent has been defeated in a primary,” Boebert said. “The voters here get it. They understand that we need a fighter and if we remain silent on the issues that matter most to us, we lose by default.”
Boebert — a staunch advocate of the 2nd Amendment — is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado, where she and waitresses open carry Glocks on their hips, gaining national attention for being the “safest restaurant in America.”
“Soon after we opened, there was a tragedy that took place and a man was beat to death near my restaurant,” Boebert said. “Now as a 5’0, 100-pound woman, I’m in the restaurant alone a lot and I wondered how I would take care of not only myself but how would I protect my people. And I began to take advantage of Colorado’s open carry laws and I began to open carry.”
“Long story short, my waitresses began to carry after that, we have tremendous training in place … we take gun safety very seriously,” Boebert said. “I believe that mistakes happen either because of ignorance or carelessness. Either you don’t know what you are doing with a firearm or you think you know so much that the basic rules don’t apply to you.”
“Next thing we knew, Nightline’s 20/20 was doing a story on us, calling Shooters Grill the safest restaurant in America,” Boebert continued. “This certainly gave me a platform for the 2nd Amendment.”
In one famous instance, Boebert confronted then-Democrat presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke after he declared to take legal guns away from law-abiding American citizens during a primary debate.
“Beto O’Rourke from the debate stage said ‘Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15s and your AK-47s,'” Boebert said. “I said nobody else is standing up to this guy so I drove three hours to his presidential rally with my Glock on my hip and I said ‘Hell no you’re not.’ That became a national rally cry for our 2nd Amendment.”
Boebert now heads off against Democrat candidate Diane Mitsch Bush in the solidly Republican congressional district’s general election on November 3.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.