Alabama GOP Senate Candidate Supported Cheap Labor Visa Programs, Zuckerberg’s Amnesty Group

As Alabama approaches election day in a contentious GOP primary to challenge Democratic Senator Doug Jones, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville is facing questions over his track record on immigration policy.

The football coach, who moved full-time from Florida to Alabama in order to campaign in the state, has faced criticism for hiring a former aide to Facebook oligarch Mark Zuckerberg’s pro-mass immigration lobbying group as a campaign strategist. Rob Jesmer is a former lead Republican consultant for FWD.us, a handsomely funded pro-amnesty group that has spearheaded attempts to ram through numerous cheap labor giveaways to corporations such as Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

Jesmer was tasked with whipping up support for amnesty and new visa programs among GOP legislators as Mark Zuckerberg’s Republican point man. Why he’s managing the campaign of a Republican candidate who claims to oppose amnesty is unclear.

Tuberville’s own statements on immigration policy have made his conservative bona fides even more questionable. He’s appeared to endorse policies that tacitly permit illegal immigration as long as those come up sign up for some sort of government identification program.

Tuberville alluded to this in a July campaign speech.

“We got 100,000 people a month coming across the border. We don’t know who they are. We need them. But at least we got to know who they are.”

It’s probably safe to assume that Alabama’s Republican voters don’t think the United States “needs” a massive influx of 100,000 people crossing the national borders illegally every month.

Tuberville seemed to endorse a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants when speaking at another campaign event in August.

“There are people coming across the border that need jobs, okay, and we want them to come over here, we just need to know who’s here, okay. Put the wall up, then we let them come in, and become citizens like we all became citizens.”

Tuberville does claim to oppose amnesty, but such vague talking points- that one could easily expect to hear from corporate lobbyists or even open borders advocates- make him hard to take seriously on the topic.

Starkly contrasting with Tuberville’s questionable track record is former Republican Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, running in the race to return to his old U.S Senate seat. Sessions’ conservative track record on immigration- which runs across decades in the Senate- is in all likelihood the strongest that any Senator in the country can claim.

Sessions holds a nearly perfect grade of A+ over the course of his 20 year Senate career from NumbersUSA, a conservative immigration policy think tank and watchdog organization, almost singlehandedly defeating numerous amnesty proposals spearheaded by an alliance of big business and Democratic political interests. He’s the only senator to hold such a grade, and such a nearly flawless track record is almost unmatched among members of the House of Representatives.

Polling on the heated primary shows Sessions with a small lead. The primary election for the nomination will be held on March 3rd. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a runoff between the first and second place winner will be held on March 31st.