Brandon Moseley
Alabama Politcal Reporter
Tuesday, December 1, US Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) issued a statement critical of proposed language in the Omnibus spending bill that would President Barack H. Obama’s unpopular immigration policies.
Sen. Sessions said, “This year’s appropriations bills – which will be combined into a catch-all ‘omnibus’ by December 11th – amount to a blank check for the President to carry out his refugee resettlement plans [as well as to]: fund the continued placement of illegal aliens from Central America into U.S. communities; continue federal funding for ‘sanctuary cities’; allow for the continued operation of the President’s 2012 executive amnesty program; and [could also] include a huge expansion of the H-2B foreign worker visa program.”
Sen. Sessions said, “Not only will the President be allowed to bring in the 85,000 refugees he has announced on top of current record immigration levels, but this will include at least 10,000 refugees from Syria who will subsequently be able to bring in their foreign relatives. All refugees are eligible for lifetime government assistance and can draw funds from Social Security and Medicare at Americans’ expense. More than 90 percent of recent Middle Eastern refugees are on welfare. And they are on a fast-track to becoming voting US citizens.”
Sessions warned, “Altogether, we can expect to issue nearly 700,000 green cards – or lifetime residency cards – to migrants from Muslim nations over the next five years (as we did over the last five years). Terror groups have demonstrated that they will recruit from among this inflow. We have already identified nearly 30 foreign-born individuals charged or convicted of terrorism offenses in the last year – investigations which required the deployment of vast manpower, financial and legal resources.” “The Obama Administration has additionally said it may admit up to 30,000 Syrian refugees into our nation next fiscal year. There is, however, no limit on the number that the President can admit this year or any year under current law, if Congress continues to write blank checks.”
Sessions said that the omnibus will continue federal funding for “sanctuary cities” allow for the continued operation of the President’s 2012 executive amnesty program, and may also, “Include a huge expansion of the H-2B foreign worker visa program, used to fill blue collar jobs such as truck driving, landscaping, construction work, and hotel service. This action would further replace and reduce wages of American workers during a time of record immigration and historically low workforce participation rates.”
Sessions wrote: “The President’s annual funding requests are just that: requests. It is the exclusive and sole constitutional prerogative of Congress whether or not to accept his requests, reject them, or impose whatever conditions Congress deems proper on behalf of taxpaying Americans. Now is the hour of choosing for Congress; will we surrender – funding Obama’s entire immigration agenda – or will we assert Congress’s power on behalf of the interests of the American people, and declare by appropriations what programs are worthy and what are not?”
At this point it appears that the moderate Senate GOP leadership is content to let President Obama finish out his term while avoiding conflict. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has repeatedly insisted that there will be no government shutdown…….essentially giving Obama and the Democrats an enormous negotiating edge with Republicans while President Obama is still in office.
Alabama’s Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. Prior to his election to the Senate in 1996 to replace the retiring Sen. Howell Heflin (D), Sessions served Alabama in as US Attorney, the Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, and as Alabama’s Attorney General.
