Sessions: Reports of Exec Amnesty After Labor Day Should 'Send Shivers' Through Congress

Sessions: Reports of Exec Amnesty After Labor Day Should 'Send Shivers' Through Congress

On Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said President Barack Obama’s reported plans to enact a massive executive amnesty “soon after Labor Day” should “send shivers through every Member of this body.”

Citing a Wall Street Journal report on Obama’s potential executive actions, Sessions said that it was clear that Obama “has been promising” amnesty advocates “things he has no power to promise” and “constitutionally that he is unable to do.”

“And this Congress needs to say no to that,” he said on the Senate floor. “We can do that by simply barring the expenditure of money in the future to execute such a scheme.”

Sessions has urged his colleagues numerous times to support legislation that would prevent Obama from implementing his executive amnesty.

“We cannot allow executive orders to be issued by a president that eradicates plain law,” he said again. “To do so is wrong. The American people are watching this. They are not going to be happy that this Congress didn’t take action. Expressions of concerns are not enough. We need to bring this up,” Sessions said.

Sessions also blasted Obama for changing his mind about whether he had the authority to unilaterally stop deportations after he could not get his amnesty bill passed in Congress.

“So the president is saying, ‘that I have legislation, and the House won’t pass it; therefore, I’m going to do it myself,'” Sessions said. “It’s one of the most pathetic excuses for the abuse of power by a court or a president that you can image.”

Earlier in the week, Sessions said that every Member would face a time for choosing at what will be a “critical hour” when it comes to the separation of powers in America.

“Our response now is of great import,” Sessions said this week on the Senate floor. “It will define the scope of executive and congressional powers for years to come. If President Obama is not stopped in this action, and he exceeds his powers by attempting to execute such a massive amnesty contrary to law, the moral authority for any immigration henceforth will be eviscerated.”

Sessions, as he has done throughout the immigration debate, reminded his colleagues that giving work permits to millions of more illegal immigrant adults to take any job in America will hurt Americans workers, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, trying to move up the economic ladder. 

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