By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Thursday, February 5, 2015 US Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) blasted his Democratic Senate colleagues as “the palace guard” for their decision to protect President Barack H. Obama’s immigration policies when they filibustered a Republican plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security without providing funds for President Obama’s controversial executive amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Sen. Sessions said, “Median family income since the recession (2007) has declined almost $5,000. This is a catastrophic event. Such a decline is unprecedented since the Great Depression, over 80 years ago. While some say jobs and wages are recovering and we can stop worrying, the facts show otherwise. In addition to depressed incomes, America has the lowest percentage of the population working in nearly 40 years.”
Sen. Sessions continued, “Consider this. There were huge worker layoffs during the 2009 recession and many more had their hours reduced as a result of Obamacare. There are other factors that combine to reveal that job and wage conditions are much worse than the unemployment rate would indicate.”
The conservative Alabama Senator said, “Despite these severe problems, a slow economy, job killing automation, and low wages, the President is carrying out his unlawful plan, rejected by Congress, that would give 5 million persons, unlawfully here, legal status, a social security number, a photo ID, and the right to take any job available in America.”
Sen. Sessions said, “Let’s be clear. These 5 million persons, with their new government issued documents, will be able to apply for, and take any of the few jobs now available in the economy. Sadly, the problem in America is not too few workers but too few jobs. Last year, the administration celebrated the creation of over 2 million jobs. The President’s actions would create from unlawful immigration over twice that many workers in his one single amnesty act. Millions more Americans who lost jobs during the recession still haven’t found work today.”
Sen. Sessions said that President’s executive amnesty is widely unpopular with the American people, “But, arrogantly, the President refuses to listen to the legitimate concerns of hurting Americans. He dismisses them, and supported by his palace guard in the United States Senate, he pushes on to advance the interests of immigration activists, political consultants lusting after votes for the next election, and big business interests lusting after lower wage labor. Businesses, who have become so transnational that their interests and those of American workers are often incompatible. President Obama supports these business interests. Who represents the interests of the dutiful American citizen and the lawful immigrant who followed the rules? Who is speaking out for them?” Sessions said that President Obama is, “not an emperor.”
Sessions also criticized Pres. Obama’ nominee for attorney general for her assertion that everyone in the country, no matter whether they are a citizen, a legal immigrant, or entered the country illegally have a right to work here.
“What the President is doing is giving lawful status to over 4 million adults—persons who entered our country against the law or came in on visas and illegally overstated. These persons cannot be hired by any business or employer under current law. But the President wants to work anyway. Congress considered and rejected this plan. The result is that the President’s plan will be a further kick in the teeth to down and struggling American workers. The facts are clear. I have not seen them disputed,”
Sen. Sessions said. Sen. Sessions was the leader of the effort to block the President’s massive immigration reform legislation in the last Congress. President Barack H. Obama however then implemented a controversial policy of amnesty through executive action without working with the Congress or following existing immigration law faithfully.
