Friday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh recalled an Obama-era effort by the White House to send illegal immigrant children to Baldwin County, which he compared to President Donald Trump’s proposal to send illegal immigrants captured at the border to sanctuary cities.
Limbaugh referenced a story by AL.com’s John Sharp headlined “White House considers sending illegal immigrant children to Sessions’ home state.”
The article detailed an opposition effort to an Obama proposal led by Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, the two Alabama U.S. Senators at the time of the effort, Baldwin County Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack and then-Baldwin County Commissioner Chris Elliott, now an Alabama State Senator.
Transcript as follows:
Now, you all in this audience will acknowledge that I have been blessed with a remarkable memory. It’s all about how the brain synapses (the deep, dark crevices in there) fire and coordinate together — and I remember this story about locating illegals in sanctuary cities. I’d seen this before somewhere. So we did a quick search at RushLimbaugh.com. Ready for this? Two and a half years ago, here’s the headline from Alabama, AL.com: “White House Considers Sending Illegal Immigrant Children to Sessions’ Home State.”
Right there. We did the story at the time, and there’s an accompanying story from Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, the two senators at the time. “Shelby and Sessions: Halt Obama’s Plans to House Illegal Alien Juveniles in Baldwin County.” Here’s the story. June 12th, 2016: “White House…” This’d be the Obama White House. “The White House is considering a plan to relocate thousands of illegal immigrant children to the home state of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, causing some to question whether presidential politics is at play.” Now, here’s the difference.
Alabama’s not a sanctuary anything. I don’t even know if they have a sanctuary city in Alabama, but the state is not. Sessions, as everybody knows, is a gigantic critic of illegal immigration. So the Obama administration doing this is a middle finger to Jeff Sessions. They’re sending a bunch of people who have violated the law to Jeff Sessions’ home state, and Jeff Sessions’ home state has not asked for them. The big difference in the Trump story is that San Francisco and Seattle, all these other sanctuary cities, want the illegals.
They advertise for them. They advocate for them. “Sessions has for years has led the opposition to immigration policies supported by President Barack Obama. The plan would send the children to Baldwin County, across the bay from Sessions’ home in Mobile County.” So they were gonna put these people right in Sessions’ front and backyard. “Sessions has also emerged among Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters and was the first senator to endorse [Trump].
“Trump’s hardline immigration approach – which includes deportation of all undocumented immigrants and a wall built along the U.S.-Mexican border — has been embraced by Sessions. ‘It’s highly probable that this is more political than practical,’ said Baldwin County Commissioner Chris Elliott. Said Baldwin County Sheriff Huey ‘Hoss’ Mack…” What a great name for a sheriff: Hoss Mack.
“Sheriff Huey ‘Hoss’ Mack: ‘I hope that is not the case. The polls I’ve seen is Alabama is very conservative on the immigration issue. The federal government is not.’” So, you see, folks — and the Washington Post didn’t do the story. The New York Times didn’t do the story. Alabama media did the story. But the Obama administration was planning this, in a gigantic middle finger to Jeff Sessions.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
