Megalextoria

Sen. Rand Paul says he’ll vote “no” on the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill, since it doesn’t include his amendment that would grant Congress power to determine whether the U.S. southern border is secure,

The Kentucky Republican had previously been open to supporting the measure, which includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that’s contingent on bolstering border security. Paul introduced an amendment that would have required Congress to vote on whether the border was properly secure, but it failed to gain approval this week.

Without that inclusion, Paul said definitively on CNN’s “State of the Union” he would be a “no” vote.

“Without some congressional authority and without border security first, I can’t support the final bill,” Paul told chief political correspondent Candy Crowley.

Supporters of the comprehensive immigration reform bill need 60 votes to gain passage in the Senate, but hope a larger majority will help propel the measure in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, where its prospects appear dim.

Full article: http://politicaltick … rt-immigration-bill/

Sen. Rand Paul plans to support a filibuster of the Senate immigration bill unless it grants Congress more border security oversight, the Kentucky Republican said on Thursday.

Paul does not plan to stand on the Senate floor for 13 hours straight like he did in March to protest President Barack Obama’s drone policy, but he will withhold support for a motion to end debate on the bill, a procedural tactic that effectively could block the bill from seeing a final vote.

“Unless they change the bill, I will vote on the side of not ending the debate, which is essentially like a filibuster, but it’s not the filibuster people think of,” Paul said during an interview on the “Andrea Tantaros Show.”

On Wednesday, the Senate rejected an amendment to the immigration bill proposed by Paul that would require the Congress to vote on whether members deem the U.S. borders “secure” every year for five years and mandate the construction of a fence along the border with Mexico. All eight members of the bipartisan group of lawmakers who wrote the original bill voted against Paul’s proposal. As the bill is currently written, agencies under the executive branch will determine border security, not Congress.

Full article: http://news.yahoo.co … -bill-174049839.html

The Senate on Wednesday voted 61–37 to table an amendment to the immigration-reform bill that would have significantly strengthened the bill’s border-security and enforcement requirements. The so-called Trust but Verify amendment, offered by Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.), would have given Congress, and not the Department of Homeland Security, the ultimate authority to determine if the border is effectively secure. It also included enhanced security measures, such as requiring a double-layer fence to be completed within five years, as well as a number of other triggers that must be implemented before illegal immigrants could be awarded legal status. “We desperately need immigration reform—but part of fixing the system is fixing our broken borders,” Paul said before the vote.

Gang of Eight member (and Paul’s potential primary opponent in 2016) Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) joined every Democrat and six other Republicans to defeat the amendement. A similar coalition of Senators has helped defeat a number of attempts to strengthen the border-security measures in the bill, and to ensure that those measures must be implemented before legal status is granted.

Full article: http://www.nationalr … ndment-andrew-stiles