Tilli$$$ DEPORTED from amnesty talks

Thom Tillis loooooves to talk about crossing the aisle to work with Democrats, but it appears he’s found an instance where they don’t want to work with him:

[…] Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who has sought to make immigration one of his signature issues, is no longer involved in key bipartisan Senate negotiations over how to protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants who will soon lose their renewable work permits … […]
The senators “would very much like to see Tillis as part of the negotiation, but question his fortitude to take on what he may perceive as a tough issue,” the third person said.

Tillis spokesman Daniel Keylin said the senator has not left the group and did not respond to questions about staff. “Tillis never left the working group, and we have recently attempted to engage with Senate Democrats to continue discussions,” he said. “Unfortunately we have not heard back.”[…]

Still part of the group, eh?  There’s MORE:

[…] Tillis has not been at meetings of the working group for several weeks, according to four people familiar with the negotiations, many of whom blame his staff for discussing private talks, being unresponsive or misrepresenting the senator’s own immigration bill.

The senators, who have met dozens of times over the last two months, including every day leading up to the holiday recess, are widely expected to craft the immigration compromise that will protect Dreamers while increasing border security.

The group, which includes Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Michael Bennet of Colorado met for an hour Wednesday night at the Capitol. Tillis did not attend, according to people familiar with the meeting. Two other original Republican members, John Cornyn of Texas and James Lankford of Oklahoma, also did not attend, they say.

One of the people familiar with the situation blamed a Tillis staffer for discussing what the senators were negotiating after they had all agreed not to speak to anyone else about it. Another said senators have been irked with a different Tillis staffer for weeks for portraying the senator’s bill as more conservative than it is. A third person blamed Tillis’ staff for being unresponsive, saying Republican members of the group made a decision to move ahead with or without Tillis.[…]

Misrepresenting?  Making himself out to be more conservative than he is?  (I do believe those DC folks are finally catching on to our boy.)