WASHINGTON — After the White House announced that President Obama will lay out his unilateral immigration actions on Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) declared that the President might as well change his title to Emperor.
“President Obama previously said he could not issue an executive amnesty because ‘I’m the President of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed,'” Sessions recalled. “Well, apparently we now have an ‘Emperor of the United States.’ President Obama’s immigration order would provide illegal immigrants with the exact benefits Congress has repeatedly rejected: Social Security numbers, photo IDs and work permits—which will allow them to now take jobs directly from struggling Americans in every occupation. Congress must not allow this unconstitutional action. That means Congress should fund the government while ensuring that no funds can be spent on this unlawful purpose.”
Sessions has recently advocated for Congress to use its power over government spending to block what he refers to as Obama’s “unlawful amnesty” plan.
While Republicans lack the votes now to bar Obama from halting deportations and effectively legalizing millions of immigrants, Sessions said, that will change when the GOP takes control of the Senate in January. So, he said, the party should refuse to approve a plan to fund the government through next September and insist instead on a short-term bill that would give them another shot at cutting spending for immigration programs early next year.
Senate Democrats “shouldn’t be entitled to bind the country next year when we’ve got a new Congress,” Sessions said, adding that a short-term government funding bill “would be smart for a lot of reasons.”
Soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other high ranking GOP senators disagree with Sessions’ approach, and hope to pass a longer term spending bill that funds the government until the fall of 2015.
Sessions has said that he would strongly consider filibustering such a measure.
“The president wants to create a massive system to provide millions of people, apparently, with lawful status, lawful ID cards, take law enforcement officers from their duties to enforce the law and have them process this legal status, which Congress has explicitly rejected,” Sessions said. “And if Congress disapproves of the president providing ID cards and all that for people who’ve been in the country illegally, they should not appropriate the money to fund it.”
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