By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Monday, June 23, Tea Party Organizations across Alabama sent a letter to Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R) and the nine members of Alabama’s Congressional Delegation, expressing their concerns over what is becoming a crisis situation on America’s southern border with Mexico.
The Tea Party Groups wrote, “As always, “We Dare Defend Our Rights,” our Sovereign State and border. The situation on the US southern border is of grave concern. While everyone has sympathy for the plight of any child, we are first charged to defend Alabama’s children. Alabama has its own issues to contend with which include, unemployment, fighting the EPA, the overcrowded prison system, and the disagreement over how to educate our own children, just to mention a few. We agree with President Obama when he stated, ‘Our laws should respect families following the rules instead of splitting them apart.’ The US should send these children back to their families as soon as possible. Warehousing them in various corners of the US will only hinder this process.”
The Tea Party groups continued in their statement, “If President Obama ignores his Constitutional Duty to defend this nation against a tide of illegals, and Congress sits idle while the Attorney General seeks lawyers to defend these illegals, then the duty falls on our States. Our own Senator Sessions penned an article calling Obama’s action ‘lawless.’ Also, the invaders streaming across our southern border are not all children. Many reports and photos show older men and gang members in the mix.”
The letter concluded, “The United States has a legal immigration system, and we all agree that legal immigration has always added to the fabric of this nation. Once assimilated into the methods of the left, illegals will create a voting block that will overwhelm our system, create a new permanent underclass, and destroy middle class America. We the People of Alabama respectfully request that Gov. Bentley (and our elected State Senators and Representatives) take a proactive stand by writing the Director of FEMA and the Sec. of Health and Human Services. We must tell them that Alabama cannot support lawlessness, nor do we have resources available to house illegal aliens in our communities. Governor Bentley should also demand prior notification regarding any plan involving Alabama. Our children and our interests must be protected by not allowing any of these manufactured “refugees” from being sent to Alabama. A Country without a border is chaos!”
The letter was signed by: Zan Green, President and Founder Rainy Day Patriots Tea Party; Cindy G. Cheavers, Coordinator Patriots of Liberty TEA Party Auburn-Opelika; Woody Wood, QART Chapter Leader John Birch Society; Dr. Terry B. Batton, Founder / President Barbour County, AL. Tax Enough Already Party Phil. 1:3, 6; Dexter Bland, Delegation Chair Calhoun County Rainy Day Patriots; Ann Eubank, Legislative Chair Rainy Day Patriots; Alex Balkcum! Patriots of Liberty Tea Party; Alabama Legislative Watchdogs; Becky Gerritson, President Wetumpka Tea Party; Roger Hill, Walker County Tea Party; Bash Agricola, Leader Montgomery Tea Party; Ricky Richerson! North Baldwin Tea Party; John D. Jordan, Leader Prattville TEA Party; Eunie Smith Eagle Forum; Sandra K. Daniel and Butch Daniel; Brenda B. Bowen! Greenville TEA Party Patriots; Ronald R. Hei, Ph.D. Co Chair and Carol L. Moreau, D.S. Co Chair Common Sense Tea Party Patriots of Covington County; Chuck and Mary Lynn Bailey, Gurley Tea Party; Dr. Lou Campomenosi and President Callie Goodrum, Common Sense Campaign; and Apryl Marie Fogel, Communications Director Rainy Day Patriots.
The current border crisis began during the 2012 election year when incumbent President Barack Hussein Obama appeared to be losing to Republican nominee, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney. The President needed a way to shore up his support with Latino voters, who are an important part of his political coalition. Dream Act legislation which would have given illegal aliens who came to the U.S. as children a path to citizenship had stalled in an election year Congress. The President, who has had a very lackluster record on the enforcement of American immigration laws already, announced that he had unilateral authority to provide blanket amnesty to juvenile illegal aliens and people who came here as juveniles. The administration began giving do not deport status to hundreds of thousands of qualified persons and allowed them to apply for work visas. While nothing in the law specifically granted the administration that sort of authority, the President claims that his authority as Chief Executive gives him that sort of executive discretion. The political ploy worked and the President was re-elected.
Taking his re-election as a mandate from the American people, the President declared two major legislative priorities for the start of his second term. First he proposed draconian new gun laws which would have criminalized millions of American gun owners and made firearms transfers much more difficult. This controversial proposal died after a few months in the U.S. Senate. Second he proposed a wide ranging immigration reform that would have increased legal immigration into this country to two million per year and given a path to citizenship to an estimated 12 million illegal aliens who are already in this country. This did pass the Democratic Party controlled U.S. Senate and went to the Republican controlled U.S. House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) from Ohio and House Majority Leader Mickey Cantor (R) from Virginia both favored passing a version of the Senate bill. Many of the Republican Congressmen however are opposed and the legislation is still stalled in the Congress.
Some conservatives speculate that the President has encouraged poor Central American families to send their children (most of them are teen males) to America by refusing to deport any minors even at the border. The teens and children are being warehoused at military bases at taxpayer expense by the U.S. Government. By creating a humanitarian crisis this puts pressure on the Congress to pass some sort of immigration reform bill. If the House passes any kind of immigration reform bill it would go to a conference committee with the Senate where the leadership could manipulate the resulting bill into something similar to what Democrats and their U.S. Chamber of Commerce allies are asking for. If nothing passes this year, then the legislation which passed the Senate would have to be reintroduced into a new (likely more conservative) U.S. Senate.
The Tea Party movement sprang up in 2010, in response to a rapidly expanding federal government and what was perceived as a growing loss of individual liberty in this country.
