Democrat Sen. Kay Hagan Called Out for Amnesty Hypocrisy

Republican North Carolina Senate candidate Thom Tillis is more aggressively calling out Sen. Kay Hagan’s (D-NC) hypocrisy on amnesty as Democrats worry that they can lose the Senate because of the immigration issue. 

Hagan, who, as late as 2013 said she opposed amnesty, voted for the Senate’s Gang of Eight amnesty bill. As President Barack Obama considers enacting more executive amnesty during the border crisis, top Senate Democrats are increasingly fearful that vulnerable Democrats like Hagan can lose and cost them control of Congress.

“Our national crisis at the border has only gotten worse since Kay Hagan and President Obama have been in Washington,” Tillis spokeswoman Meghan Burris told the Citizen-Times. “While it’s nice to hear Hagan’s sudden concern in the form of election-year rhetoric, the simple fact is that she repeatedly voted against securing the border, and even voted to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Unlike Senator Hagan, Thom Tillis will oppose amnesty and work hard to secure our border.”

The Hagan campaign told the Citizen-Times that she voted for the Senate’s amnesty bill because it provided more security. She did not note that the bill would have also given a pathway to citizenship to all the country’s illegal immigrants, which the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of American workers. She also did not draw attention to her votes against various amendments that would have, in fact, made the border more secure. 

Six years ago, Hagan promised North Carolina voters that she would be against amnesty to get to the Senate and tried to outflank Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) on the issue. She tied Dole to President George W. Bush in the wake of Bush’s failed attempt at a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

“Like Senator Dole, Kay Hagan opposes amnesty in any form,” a 2008 Hagan press release said, according to the Citizen-Times. “She also believes Washington must take immediate steps to secure the border, enforce the rule of law and crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, things Elizabeth Dole has refused to do.”

But as Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle reported, during the amendment process for the Senate’s amnesty bill last year, “Hagan also voted against a series of amendments that would have required border security and a fence at the border.” For instance, “On an amendment offered by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that would have required 350 miles of double-layered fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico, Hagan voted no–helping kill that amendment.” In addition, “Hagan also voted to table, or kill, an amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called the ‘Trust But Verify’ amendment that would have required a double-layered fence be built along the border within five years, among other security measures.” 

And, as Breitbart News noted, Hagan ultimately voted for the bill even after 80 sheriffs and families of victims killed by illegal immigrants warned Hagan of the amnesty bill’s “serious public safety concerns.”

In 2009, Kagan, unlike some other Senate Democrats, even voted against “Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) amendment to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill which anti-amnesty group Numbers USA said would have required ‘that the 700 miles of border fencing (which was previously approved and appropriated for) be completed.'” The amendment, as Breitbart News highlighted, passed without Kagan’s support.

Tillis has taken a stronger stance against illegal immigration even though he won the nomination with the help of millions of dollars from the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, and Jeb Bush–all of whom have been some of the most prominent supporters of amnesty legislation.