WASHINGTON — Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions chastised his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor Friday for refusing to voice opposition to what Sessions describes as President Obama’s “executive amnesty.”
“Are you afraid to say to the President of the United States, ‘we don’t agree with this and we’re not going to fund this?’” Sessions asked rhetorically. “Is that the world we’re in? Are we hiding under our desks that the President may go on television and attack us because we don’t agree with his ideas? Surely not.”
The Senate is expected to consider legislation from the House this week that would fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without appropriating money to Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Democrats, however, want to pass what they’re calling a “clean” bill funding DHS, including the president’s immigration orders, a push that Sen. Sessions called “an affront to constitutional order.”
“This bill will not deny a penny of funding,” Sessions said. “It will not deny any funding for any program, activity or action that’s authorized by law. It does not deny funding for any of those programs that are actually authorized by the laws of the United States.”
Thursday evening President Obama told a group of House Democrats he would “happily” veto any bill he deemed would worsen the nation’s immigration policy.
While on the Senate floor, Sen. Sessions also read aloud the statements of several Democratic lawmarkers who had expressed concern about Obama’s executive actions.
“In fact it is sort of remarkable that this is a bipartisan position that the president has overreached,” Sessions said.
“So I would say, colleagues, why, why would any senator, Democrat or Republican, when the very integrity and the constitutional powers that have been given to Congress are eroded in a dramatic way by the president of the United States, why would we not want to assert congressional authority?”
Sessions pledged in early January after being appointed Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee that he would be a voice for those who have been ignored during the immigration debate in recent years.
“This subcommittee will give voice to those whose voice has been shut out: the voice of the dedicated immigration officers who have been blocked from doing their jobs; the voice of the working families whose wages have been reduced by years of record immigration; the voice of the American IT workers who are being replaced with guest workers; the voice of the parents who are worried about their schools and hospitals; and the voice of all Americans who believe we must have a lawful system of immigration they can be proud of and that puts their interests first,” said Sessions.
“Our first urgent task in this regard is for the Senate GOP to rally the nation behind an effort to halt the President’s unlawful amnesty. Additionally, there is a great deal of misinformation about what actions must actually be taken to create a sound immigration system. Our subcommittee will seek to serve all members, and the public, as a hub for the facts, data, statistics, and evidence they can rely upon for honest information. I became a prosecutor believing that there is a truth, and that a proper analysis of the facts will lead us to that truth. The challenge is large but the task is just, and rests on the solid moral foundation of our citizens’ legitimate demands. I look forward to working with my colleagues towards this end.”
