Several Tea Party Leaders Back Sen. Paul’s Amnesty Approach

Several leaders of Tea Party groups expressed support for Sen. Rand Paul’s amnesty proposal despite the fact that it runs contrary to the basic tenets of such groups – reducing the size and cost of government. It is not clear whether the leaders were expressing their own views or the views of their members.Sal Russo, who founded the Tea Party Express, applauded Paul’s immigration proposal and admired his “willingness to stand up and take a principled stand” on immigration. “I think the immigration issue is an important issue and Republicans have looked like they have their head in the sand and are not being serious about addressing a problem,” Russo said. “People are in this country a long time and they are not legal. We have to get them legal in some way in a process that gets people legal that are here…We should do it because it’s the right thing. We need to reform immigration because we need a system that works,” Russo said.FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe said of Paul, “I think he’s sort of risen to the top of the GOP ladder simply by putting ideas back on the table. All of these ideas that most Republicans pay lip service to, he’s putting specifics on the table.” Kibbe said proposing citizenship for illegal aliens is a “calculated risk,” but Paul’s proposal is in the “framework of our principals.” Kibbe said immigration is not an issue that FreedomWorks champions although his group has previously supported amnesty.Tea Party Patriots’ leader Jenny Beth Martin said immigration isn’t one of her group’s main issues but they are “aligned” with Paul on the issue of border security.  “The way we’ve approached immigration is the borders need to be secure. Real action needs to be taken to secure the border and then once that happens we will talk about other immigration policies,” Martin said.Read here for more information.