On Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said a pro-amnesty candidate must not get the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, indicating that he may play an active role in ensuring that immigration remains a significant issue during the primary season and that the interests of American workers are heard.
On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, host Mark Levin said that he felt it was “important that we have a Republican nominee for president who addresses” President Barack Obama’s lawless executive amnesty “head-on.” Levin said that Republicans needed a candidate who would vow to do everything “we can to reverse what the president has done” because “it’s bad immigration policy,” and “it’s bad in terms of the rule of law.”
“Don’t we want a nominee who will say that?” Levin asked Sessions.
Sessions replied, “Absolutely. You are exactly correct.”
“And the American people and the Republican voters need to now exactly where their candidate stands on the issue. And just those two questions, in my opinion, are the fundamentally key questions,” Sessions continued. “We have every right to demand of our candidates where they stand on this issue. And if they are incorrect, they don’t need to get the nomination of the Republican Party.”
After the flood of illegal immigrant juveniles from Central America and Obama’s executive amnesty, immigration may be an even bigger issue to GOP primary voters than in past election cycles. In the 2008 Republican presidential primary, Sen. John McCain’s campaign went on life support; McCain had to fly coach and carry his own bags when his fundraising dried up after he authored the comprehensive amnesty bill with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). President George W. Bush also supported that bill, which nearly cost McCain, whom conservatives never fully trusted, the nomination. In 2012, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s polling numbers plummeted when he said that conservatives who opposed in-state tuition for illegal immigrants did not have “a heart.” And Mitt Romney only secured the nomination by tacking to the right on the immigration issue, even supporting attrition by enforcement, calling it “self deportation.”
The GOP has gotten more conservative in opposing illegal immigration, and Sessions said “these candidates need to be inquired of with absolute clarity about where they stand.”
Congress may still be on vacation, but Sessions (R-AL) has continued to be relentless and vigilant opposing Obama’s potential executive amnesty.
On Wednesday, he called out Senate Democrats for their “roaring silence” and warned that Obama’s potential executive amnesty would be a “clear and present danger” to U.S. workers and national security at a time when ISIS terrorists have threatened to exploit America’s lax visa policies to enter the country.
Sessions said Obama’s executive amnesty would be a green light and signal to everyone in the world, including terrorists who may want to do harm, to break America’s immigration laws.
“If implemented, the President’s new executive actions would functionally end what little remains of interior immigration enforcement, giving free license to every person in the world–here today or planning to come tomorrow–to violate our immigration laws with impunity,” Sessions said.
Sessions also said the White House’s confirmation that it would meet its “self-imposed deadline” on executive actions that will harm American workers and threaten the country’s security was equally “astounding.”
As Sessions noted, the “massive executive amnesty and work authorization for 5-6 million individuals who illegally entered the U.S., illegally overstayed a visa, or illegally defrauded U.S. immigration authorities” would enable illegal immigrants to “to compete for any job in America.” On top of that, Obama may grant nearly 800,000 guest-worker visas to high-tech companies so they can give him cover for the executive amnesty. Many of the companies–like Cisco and Microsoft–that would utilize the guest-worker visas have laid off American workers at a time when there already is a surplus of American high-tech workers.
Sessions said the result of all this “would be disastrous for struggling workers–coming on the heels of four decades of continued record immigration into the U.S., coinciding with falling wages and a shrinking middle class.”
On the national security front, Sessions mentioned that “ICE officers and USCIS officers” have said that “they are routinely barred from enforcing bedrock immigration laws such as visa overstays, illegal entry, and illegal residence–for both current and future immigration violators.” Obama’s executive amnesty would only make the situation worse.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.