tags: , , , , , , , AVEF, Blog

On Immigration, Why Would Anyone, Especially Marco Rubio, Follow Jeff Sessions?

Share This:

Yesterday, TPM’s Benjy Sarlin took a closer look at Senator Marco Rubio’s latest delaying tactic on immigration:

You’d expect Sen. Marco Rubio to be elated by the news over the weekend that labor and business groups reached a deal on a guest worker program, given that he’d identified their slow progress as one of the biggest obstacles to reform. Instead, Rubio used the occasion to issue warnings about “premature” celebration and demand that the Senate slow the whole process down.

Rubio’s surprising move comes as a leading anti-immigration Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions (AL), is demanding a lengthier process as well.

Yes, Jeff Sessions pioneered the “slow walk” on immigration reform, and now Rubio is trying to dance it.  Sessions, however, for sure wants to kill immigration reform entirely.  Is that what Rubio wants?

Regardless, why would anyone, especially Marco Rubio, cozy up to Sessions on matters of immigration? That would be like how Mitt Romney cozied up to Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, adopting Krikorian’s concept of “self-deportation”–and look how well that turned out for him.  Sessions, in fact, is also a true believer on self-deportation and welcomed such a law–the viciously anti-immigrant HB 56–when itpassed in Alabama.   Showing no empathy for displaced children, Sessions even said that immigrants fleeing the state because of the harsh law was a “rational response.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Self-deportation originated in the John Tanton family of anti-immigrant groups, of which Krikorian is a long-standing member. And the Tanton groups have very close ties to Sessions, as we revealed  in our April 2009 backgrounder.  As we wrote, “Sessions has close relations with the three leading anti-immigrant groups: the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS),  NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR.)  He often quotes their work and regularly appears at their events.”  FAIR, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group, gave Sessions its “Defender of the Rule of Law” award back in 2008. After we released this report, Huffington Post’s Sam Stein wrote:

In a document provided to the Huffington Post, America’s Voice doesn’t hold back its punches, calling Sessions “one of the leading (and loudest) voices against comprehensive immigration reform in the United States Senate.” They also tie the Senator to John Tanton, an anti-immigration activist described as a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

There is no evidence that Sessions holds some of the most extreme views of the individuals and groups he has associated with, and they have no large-scale financial links to the senator. But the report by America’s Voice illuminates just where Sessions stands and who he associates with on one of the big political issues to confront Congress in the years ahead. And they build upon earlier reporting linking the senator to racially inflammatory views.

The America’s Voice report documents how Sessions has regularly appeared with or joined political causes backed by groups founded by Tanton, including the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA — which named Sessions its “2008 Defender of the Rule of Law” — and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR.) The senator also received a $1,000 donation from the U.S Immigration Reform, a political action committee founded by Tanton’s wife.

The Jeff Sessions anti-immigrant wing has caused major problems for the Republican Party with Latino voters, which is why the Republican National Committee (RNC ) recently encouraged the party to take the opposite tack, and support immigration reform. But Sessions is a true believer, and an avowed opponent of immigration reform. And now Marco Rubio is echoing Sessions very own talking points, on process if not on policy?

Fortunately, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has already stepped in not once, but twice, to tell the “slow down” caucus that they time for action is now:

I am hopeful you recognize, as I do, that if we do not act quickly and decisively we will lose the opportunity we now have to fix our immigration system,” Leahy wrote in a letter to Rubio on Tuesday. “Those who have been committed to this effort for decades are counting on us and expect the Senate to act thoughtfully and without further delay. I have little doubt we are capable of doing both and that our committee process will be, as is my practice, a full and open public debate of the legislation.

As an opponent of immigration reform, Senator Sessions won’t like that.  But as a supporter, Rubio should.