King: Obama Is Already Violating the Law

King: Obama Is Already Violating the Law

President Obama is already not sticking to the law, so why would lawmakers trust Obama enough to move forward with immigration reform next year, Iowa Republican Steve King wondered in reaction to House Speaker John Boehner’s recent comments leaving the door open for immigration reform next year. 

“I wonder what law John Boehner is referring to. I mean, he is suing him for not adhering to the law,” King reacted. 

This week, during a Tuesday appearance on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, House Speaker John Boehner recalled what he told Obama in July — that the House would likely not move forward with immigration reform next year because of “the flood on the border, and the president’s own pounding his chest about using his phone and his pen.” Boehner went on:

But I did outline that, you know, there’s a possibility that Congress could take this issue up next year. But if that were going to happen, there are things that he should do, and things he should not do as we lead up to this. And I think adhering to the law is a minimum requirement from the President. And he ought to be taking actions to better secure our borders. And so I would hope that the President would continue to follow the law, and begin to take steps that would better secure our border. It would create an environment where you could do immigration reform in a responsible way next year.

According to King, Obama cannot “continue to follow the law,” because he is not following the law already.

“Multiple violations of that with regard to Obamacare. We’ve got welfare work [requirement] suspended, we’ve got No Child Left Behind effectively suspended,” King said, adding the Obama administration also failed to follow the law by moving forward with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program and the Morton Memos. 

King added that, although Boehner has said Obama needs to regain lawmakers’ trust, in 28 years of business, among those who violated his trust, the Iowa lawmaker  said he “could think of no one who earned it back.”

“So how could we imagine that a president who has an open borders amnesty agenda is going to earn our trust back?” King rhetorically asked. 

“The President is planning to commit, I think, the most open and blatant constitutional violation in the history of the presidency. He’s been floating that trial balloon constantly,” King said.

While King thinks it is unlikely Obama could regain trust on this issue, he said that Boehner’s words likely show that the Speaker is not ready to sound defeat on the push for “amnesty.” 

“I would think it would be more of the speech pattern of John Boehner, wanting to give a little bit to each side of the argument, because he isn’t ready to take a firm stance,” he said. “When he says there will be no immigration legislation passed this year, that means to all of us this calendar year. And I just don’t think he wants to be on record putting an end to this hope for amnesty out there, and it happens to be his personal agenda, which he has said publicly.”

King predicted that if Republicans win the Senate this cycle, there will be immigration reform legislation that makes it to Obama’s desk. However, it would be focused on immigration enforcement.

“It will be border security and it will be enforce the law. It will cut off funding to DACA and the Morton memos. So, yes, that would be the kind of reform we need. Put the President back on a constitutional track. But not amnesty,” he said.

King added that if Democrats hold the Senate, the equation would be different, but he was not prepared to predict what might happen on the immigration front, recalling that few expected that legislative “amnesty” could be prevented over the last two years. 

“I said then, a year ago February, ‘I will die on that Hill first, and if I have to die alone on it, I’ll die alone on it.’ And here we are now this September, and we have forestalled mass amnesty at least from a legislative standpoint for the 113th Congress. That was not something people around me thought could be achieved back a year ago last February when we first began this. So I don’t know what tomorrow brings,” King said.

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