By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Wednesday, August 13 U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R) released a written statement asking Americans to contact their Senators to take a stand on President Barack H. Obama’s proposal that the President declare millions of illegal aliens legal status to live in this country and work visas to work here legally.
Senator Sessions said, “Recent developments suggest the President’s planned executive amnesty could be increasingly imminent and broad in scope. House Democrat Leader Pelosi—clearly one of the White House’s closest allies—has just urged the President to issue ‘the broadest possible’ executive actions. Open borders groups have grown bolder and louder in their unlawful demands, launching a campaign for the President to ‘go big,’ and demanding that he ‘stand up’ to Congress and ‘expand DACA.’”
Senator Sessions asked, “Will Congress defend itself? Will it defend the country’s laws, its people, and the idea that a nation has enforceable borders that cannot be waived away with the flick of a pen? While the Senate recesses, activist groups and special interest lobbyists are huddling with the White House to implement through executive action that which Congress explicitly rejected. These are the same groups who met to devise the Senate’s ‘Gang of Eight’ plan, until that effort was exposed and then halted by the American people and their representatives in the House.”
Senator Sessions said, “It is chilling to consider now that these groups, frustrated in their aims by our Constitutional system of government, are plotting with the Obama Administration to collect their spoils through executive fiat.”
In the statement Senator Jeff Sessions quoted from an Associated Press article: “‘White House officials are making plans to act before November’s mid-term elections to grant work permits to potentially millions of immigrants who are in this country illegally…White House officials led by Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz and White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, along with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, have been working to chart a plan on executive actions Obama could take, hosting frequent meetings with interest groups… the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it is actively working to determine whether there are steps Obama could take by executive action that could help the business community.’”
Sen. Sessions asked, “So, with American workers hurting, special interest groups are collaborating with the White House on measures that would pull down wages and impoverish working Americans?”
The conservative Alabama Senator said, “The steps that must be taken are clear: the Senate must vote on the House-passed measure to stop these unlawful actions. It is true that Majority Leader Reid is blocking it from a vote. But Reid acts only with the blessing of his members in the Democrat conference—so the American people have the power to force it to a vote through their elected Senators. Any Senator who fails to request such a vote is complicit in these planned actions.”
Sen. Sessions concluded, “The American people have begged and pleaded for years for our immigration laws to be enforced. But the politicians have refused. Now these planned executive actions would nullify our laws, invite a massive new wave of unimpeded illegality, and strip the American people of their lawful right to have their jobs and communities protected. This must be stopped. And the American people have the power to stop it. That begins with asking a simple question: where do your Senators stand?”
The United States has taken in 40 million new immigrants both legal and illegal since 1970. In recent years, American workers, especially the least skilled half of the work force, have seen their wages stagnate adjusted for inflation. Mandates, under the controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, on businesses to provide expensive health insurance for full time workers has meant that many businesses aren’t letting workers put in more than 28 hours per week. A luxury business has because of the soft jobs market.
Sen. Sessions has argued that Washington’s inaction on enforcing immigration law actually hurts both immigrant workers and U.S. born workers alike. Sen. Sessions said, “The share of the population today that is foreign-born has quadrupled. It has gone up four-fold in forty years.” Sen. Sessions has suggested that after four decades of large-scale immigration, it is time to slow down, allow wages to rise, assimilation to occur, and the middle class to be restored.
The popular Senator Jefferson Beauregard “Jeff” Sessions III faces re-election this year; but no Republican and no Democrat would take on the challenge of running against Sen. Sessions in Alabama.
