Senate Democrats are complicit in helping President Barack Obama destroy American immigration law if they don’t demand a vote on the House-passed bill that would defund Obama’s efforts to grant executive amnesty to upwards of 5 million illegal aliens, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said in a Friday statement.
Sessions cited a report Friday morning from Politico that detailed how Senate Democrats are actually urging President Obama to grant an executive amnesty–but to do it after the November election to mitigate electoral consequences against them for his action.
Sessions says the developments in the Politico article “ought to send shudders down the spine of those who care about our representative system of government” because it shows Senate Democrats, “instead of opposing the President’s executive amnesty,” are trying to “urge him to issue it after they face voters in November.”
“The only thing that is more shocking than Senate Democrats’ support for the President’s planned executive amnesty is the cravenness of asking him to proceed beginning the day after the midterms,” Sessions said, speaking directly to voters nationwide. “Once again, powerful politicians are colluding with powerful interest groups to deny you, the American citizen, the protection of your laws and your voice in government. They don’t care what you want, or what you think-they scorn and mock our good and decent citizens for wishing their laws to be enforced. Never in recent memory has the divide between the everyday citizen, and the political elite, been as wide as it is now.”
The Politico article cites several Democratic U.S. Senators urging Obama to wait until after the election, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)–who’s not even facing voters in November this year as he was re-elected last cycle. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who’s up against GOP candidate Mike McFadden, told Politico he has “concerns about executive action,” and Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, told Politico it’d be a “mistake” for Obama to do anything big.
“Until now, few Democrats have been willing to break publicly with Obama over his vow to issue an executive order on immigration,” Politico’s Anna Palmer and Carrie Budoff Brown wrote. “Democratic incumbents in this year’s most competitive Senate races have already voiced concern, but the calls from others to hold off on acting suggests Democrats are growing even more anxious about the decision and its potential to upend the fight for control of the Senate.”
Later in the piece, Budoff Brown and Palmer quote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as having “declined Thursday to say that Obama should act ahead of the election — a noncommittal posture that reflects the deep divisions within his caucus.”
“The decision is the president’s,” Reid said in an interview with Politico. “I’m confident he’s going to do something. He has to decide when he’s going to do it.”
Sessions said that it’s up to Senate Democrats whether Obama does it–and if Senate Democrats keep silent, then the blame for whatever the president might do lies with them. Sessions also argued that Obama’s planned actions would put every American’s job prospects at risk.
“Just today, the President reiterated his commitment to implement an executive amnesty that would include work authorization for millions of people who entered illegally or illegally overstayed a visa – allowing them to compete for any job in America,” Sessions said. “His planned action would also reportedly include a massive boost to the already-huge supply of low-wage labor brought into the U.S. for large corporations.”
Sessions noted that the immigration debate “comes down to several central questions,” then listed those questions.
“Does our country have the right to control its borders and decide who comes to live and work here?” Sessions asked. “Do citizens have the right to expect and demand that the laws passed by their elected representatives will be enforced? Should American workers get priority for jobs and wages?”
“Any Senator who believes the answers to these questions are ‘yes’, must support the House-passed bill to block the President’s planned executive amnesty – and demand Leader Reid call it up for a vote. Not one Senate Democrat has done so,” Sessions added.
“A sovereign nation establishes rules about who can enter, work and live within its borders,” Sessions concluded. “In every imaginable way, the President has worked to dismantle these rules – on the border, in our courts, through our visa system, through our asylum system, through our exit-entry system. And with this executive action, the President proposes to scrub away what remains of these rules. And Senate Democrats will have been partners in its commission.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.