See Also Chris Christie Won’t Block Obama’s Bridge To Amnesty by Ann Coulter
His girth aside, New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie has rarely registered a blip on the 2016 campaign’s radar. The Real Clear Politics
poll average
currently finds him in 6th place with 3.5%. Unlike in the cases of
Walker, Bush, Fiorina, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz, the Republican
Establishment and the Main Stream Media has never
pretended he was surging and about to take Trump out. In fact, he’s never broken 5% in the polls. Despite this,
George Will (or his
intern) recently suggested that Christie may very well be at “the center of the stage at the Cleveland convention.” [
Keep an eye on Chris Christie, Washington Post, January 15, 2016]. Unlikely—but Christie could impact the race.
With the
Trump-Cruz truce over,
the Establishment now hopes for a war of mutual destruction. As
Christie has been such a non-entity throughout the election, he’s
remained relatively unscathed. With Kasich and Bush all but finished,
Christie and Rubio are fighting for the scraps.
As I and others at VDARE.com have
emphasized over and
over again,
Trump’s base is not ultraconservative Tea Partiers who hate the GOP
Establishment for not cutting Medicare spending. Trump does well amongst
virtually all Republican demographics but, as Josh Kraushaar has noted,
he is strongest among the “more moderate, more secular, more
blue-collar” voters [
The Crackup of the Republican Establishment,
National Journal, October 19, 2015] Cruz, in contrast, depends heavily from conservative and evangelical voters.
This is not to say that Trump and Cruz are not also competing for
many of the same voters. While Cruz is running a traditional Tea Party
campaign, he has also echoed Trump’s positions on trade and
immigration—going as far as to say he would
appoint Trump
to build the wall and negotiate trade deals. Cruz has managed to gain
support of many hardline conservative immigration patriots like
Tom Tancredo and
Steve King who likely would be otherwise inclined to support Trump.
The most conservative popular talk radio hosts, Mark Levin, Rush
Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity have been very favorable to both Trump and
Cruz—though Limbaugh and Levin have now all but endorsed Cruz. Yet even
if Limbaugh and Co. completely turned on Trump and their listeners
followed, Trump has a comfortable enough lead right now that he could
probably do without them.
Unless a candidate peels off Trump’s
working class
base he’ll easily win the GOP nomination. Rick Santorum, who is running
on an immigration patriot campaign and wrote a book called
Blue Collar Conservatives, never even made it to the main debate stage. Scott Walker, who also
flirted with immigration patriotism
and governs a heavily working class Midwestern state dropped out. John
Kasich represents Ohio, the key state for these voters, but his campaign
appeals to liberal media elites and big money donors rather than his
constituents.
Chris Christie is the only remaining candidate with a potential to
draw off these voters. George Will gushes that “Christie could be an
alternative alpha persona, but without the ignorance.” Christie’s shtick
as a fat, no-nonsense guy from New Jersey who loves
Bruce Springsteen ostensibly appeals to working class whites. As
Sean Trende has written:
Christie is probably the only other candidate running in
Trump’s “lane.” That is to say, while Ted Cruz and Paul could be seen as
running in the “Tea Party” lane, and Carson and Huckabee are in the
“evangelical” lane, Christie is the only candidate who really has a foot
in Trump’s “tough guy/strong leader” lane. He draws from a lot of the
same demographics as Trump,
[Laying Odds on the GOP Presidential Race, Real Clear Politics, December 10, 2015]
But despite these similarities in style and appeal, it’s vital to
realize that on the key issue of immigration, Christie and Trump could
not be more different.
Recently Christie has tried to sound tough. During the debate last week, he said
Now, I for seven years was the U.S. Attorney of New
Jersey. I worked hard with not only federal agents but with police
officers and here’s the problem, sanctuary cities is part of the problem
in this country. That’s where crime is happening in these cities where
they don’t enforce the immigration laws.
[6th Republican debate transcript, January 14, 2016]
In the December National Security Debate, a Facebook questioner named Carla Hernandez asked: “If the
Bible clearly states that we need to embrace those in need and not fear, how can we justify not accepting refugees?”
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer added,
in the helpful MSM way:
Governor Christie, you say there should be a pause in
allowing new refugees to come into the United States, including orphans
under the age of five. What do you say to Carla?
But Chris Christie doubled down, saying
And it was widows and orphans, by the way, and we now
know from watching the San Bernardino attack that women can commit
heinous, heinous acts against humanity just the same as men can do it.
And so I don’t back away from that position for a minute. When the FBI
director tells me that he can vet those people, then we’ll consider it
and not a moment before because your safety and security is what’s most
important to me.
[5th Republican debate transcript, December 15, 2015]
Good red-meat stuff. But there is an unfortunate complication:
Christie’s recent tough rhetoric on immigration completely contradicts his longstanding pro-Amnesty career.
Thus while Christie repeatedly harps back to his career as a
prosecutor and speaks out against sanctuary cities, he actually tried to
force cities to be sanctuaries against their will.
Christie’s New Jersey is in fact one of the most attractive states
for illegal aliens. Several municipalities, including the state’s two
biggest cities, Newark and Jersey City, and also its capital, Trenton,
have sanctuary policies.
The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Control Act both outlaws
sanctuary cities and enables for states and localities to enter into
287(g) agreements to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. But
Christie has never done anything to combat the Sanctuary Cities.
Worse, in 2007 Don Cresitello, the (Democratic) Mayor of Morristown
NJ, appealed to then-US Attorney Chris Christie for the town to enter
into a 287(g) program. Morristown had been overrun with illegal aliens
including gang members. One of
these illegal aliens killed a ten year-old boy after being twice arrested for crimes involving knives and released without being reported to immigration authorities.
Far from taking the hardcore
Joe Arpaio stance, Cresitello told
NJ Ledger columnist
Paul Mulshine
that “We’re not going to go after jay walkers”—but that he wanted to be
able to deal with the MS 13-led drug and prostitution rings.
Christie accused Cresitello of “”hyperbole and grandstanding and demagoguery” [
Morristown’s mayor was right on immigration, August 14, 2007] To this day, Christie still
refers to him as a “
demagogue” on immigration.
In 2008, then-prosecutor Christie told a church group
Being in this country without proper documentation is not
a crime…The whole phrase of “illegal immigrant” connotes that the
person, by just being here, is committing a crime…Don’t let people make
you believe that that’s a crime that the U.S. Attorney’s Office should
be doing something about. It is not.
[Christie at church forum: Illegal immigrants aren’t criminals, Julie O’Connor, Star-Ledger, April 28, 2010]
While Christie is technically correct that “unlawful presence” is a civil rather than criminal offense, deportation is a civil
remedy
(as opposed to a criminal remedy like imprisonment). The issue with
“unlawful presence” is not that it is a serious crime, but that every
second an illegal alien is in the country, he is breaking the law.
Moreover, unlawful entry (i.e jumping the border rather than overstaying
a visa
) is a crime, and in order to function in society most illegal aliens commit a host of other crimes like
Social Security and
document fraud. [
Is Illegal Immigration a Crime?, by Brett Snider, Findlaw, July 9, 2014]
Christie opposed Arizona’s SB 1070, saying: “This is a federal
problem, it’s gotta have a federal fix. I’m not really comfortable with
state law enforcement having a big role.” [
Gov. Chris Christie calls for Republican Party rebranding, Maggie Haberman and Ben Smith,
Politico, June 30, 2010]
Yet Christie was quite prepared to addressing illegal immigration on
the state level when it came to granting in state tuition for illegal
aliens. He surrounded himself with illegal aliens, Democratic
politicians, and Hispanic ethnic lobbyists from the
Latino Leadership Alliance when he signed the
NJ Dream Act. He called opponents of the act “cold hearted” and described the illegal alien DREAMer job thieves as “an inspiration.” [
Chris Christie trumpets signing of Dream Act in Union City, Jeena Portnoy,
Star-Ledger, January 7, 2014]
Christie portrays himself as a no-nonsense straight talker. His campaign slogan is “
Telling it like it is.” In 2010, Christie told ABC News he supported “a commonsense path to citizenship for people.” [
Christie: Take my bipartisan example to pass immigration reform, Jordy Yager, The Hill, July 25, 2010]
Yet on the biggest immigration issue that faced our country over the
last few years: the Gang of 8 Amnesty, he refused to say whether he
supported the bill—or a path to citizenship. When Chris Wallace asked
him “Do you still favor comprehensive immigration reform, including a
path to citizenship?” Christie responded” “What I favor is fixing a
broken system, and the fact is that everybody knows the system is
broken. And what Congress needs to do is get to work, working with each
other and the president to fix a broken system that’s not serving our
economy well, not serving our country well.”[
Chris Wallace Tests Chris Christie’s Conservative Credentials, Fox News, November 10, 2013] He repeated that same type of evasion when ABC News asked him [
Christie Defers to ‘National Leaders’ to Devise ‘National Solution’ on Immigration, by Matt Vespa, CNS News, November 12, 2013]
And just like the rest of the GOP field, Chris Christie reversed his
support for a path to citizenship when his poll numbers tanked. In May,
he told Megyn Kelly that citizenship was “an extreme way to go.”
Kelly reminded Christie that about five years ago, he
expressed support for giving some undocumented immigrants an opportunity
to legalize.
Christie said: “I’ve learned over time about this issue and done a
lot more work on it. Just immediately going to a path to citizenship, as
Hillary Clinton is proposing to do, is just pandering politics.”
[Chris Christie says he opposes path to citizenship, questions Rubio’s readiness, Fox News Latino, May 19, 2015]
In other words, Christie had no substantive objection to a path to citizenship.
Later in July, Alisyn Camerota of CNN quoted Christie’s previous “commonsense path to citizenship” line and he responded
Well, first of all, yes, I agree with everything I said
in there. We don’t have the resources from a law enforcement perspective
to forcibly deport those folks, not in those numbers. We simply don’t.
Christie then demurred from giving citizenship but said he wanted to still give illegals work authorization, noting
I have to tell you the truth, I—we have a number of
undocumented immigrants here in New Jersey, many whom I’ve met over the
course of my governorship. None of them has ever come to here and said
that, “Governor, the reason I came here was to vote.” They said they
came here to work. So let’s deal with the work situation first, and then
we’ll deal with everything else.
[Transcript: Chris Christie Shares Views on Justice System, Immigration, CNN, July 17, 2015]
In an interview yesterday, Christie tried to veer right on
immigration again, telling Byron York he opposes raising legal
immigration limits or legalizing any illegal aliens until “after we get
under control both our border situation and our visa situation.” He also
endorsed the term “attrition through enforcement” and said he supported
E-verify to “encourage some people to leave on their own.” [
A few questions for Chris Christie on immigration, Washington Examiner,
January 18, 2016] This contradicts his emphatic statement from less
than a year ago that “I’m not someone who believes that folks who have
come here in that status [illegally] are going to engage in
self-deportation.” [
Gov. Chris Christie: Many Undocumented Workers Won’t ‘Self-Deport’,
by Charlie Spiering, Breitbart.com, April 21, 2015] As I’ve shown
above, this is just the latest of Christie’s many equivocations and flip
flops on immigration.
Chris Christie has gotten away with these flip-flops, obfuscations,
and just plain terrible statements because no-one has really paid
attention to him.
Yet as George Will and other Establishment
Poohbahs start talking him up, no amount of tough talk and Bruce Springsteen quotes will be able to hide Chris Christie’s scandalously
anti-American worker immigration record.
Washington Watcher [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.
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