[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 147 (Thursday, December 4, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6327-S6329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, it has already started. There is being
readied today a building in Crystal City, VA, to house the announced
1,000 workers who will be hired to process the unlawful Executive
amnesty the President has said he intends to execute.
The President is already moving forward. He is rushing to impose his
immigration views before the Congress can contain it or restrain it;
before the American people fully understand what is happening; and to
make it so it can't be stopped.
The President's Executive orders violate the laws of Congress--the
laws that Congress has passed--in order to implement laws he wishes
Congress had passed but which Congress has refused to pass. It refused
in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014.
The American people, through their congressional representatives,
have considered these kinds of proposals, they evaluated them, the
American people expressed their views on them, and Congress said no.
The people have been clear on this issue. For decades they have
pleaded, demanded, really, that this Congress create an immigration
system that is lawful; that we end the lawlessness, that it be
principled, that it serve the national interest, and that it serves
their interest and not the special interests. But Congress and
political leaders have refused to do so.
It is unfortunate to a degree I don't think I have seen on any other
issue. Perhaps no other issue defines the gap between the elites in
this country and middle Americans who go to work every day, who support
our country, pay our taxes, and fight our wars. Our people want our
laws that are on the books now enforced. If new laws are needed, they
want us to pass new laws to end this lawlessness. But this President
rejects the will of the people. His policies nullify the laws we have.
His policies, shockingly, direct Federal agents to ignore their oaths
and not enforce the laws, which creates the lawlessness that stains our
legal system in our country today and is causing so much angst out
there. People are not opposed to immigration. People are frustrated
that their government refuses to create a lawful system that will work
and serve them.
What I want to say to my colleagues is that the President has gone
even farther than that. He has gone farther than just saying: I am not
going to enforce the laws, which he, as a President, the Chief
Executive Officer, is required to do. He is required to execute the
laws of the United States faithfully, which he is absolutely failing to
do. But he is moving forward with his immigration agenda, rejected by
Congress and the American people, and he is moving forward in a lot of
different ways.
This was an issue in the campaign. The people heard about it just a
few weeks ago and they cast their ballots. There are nine new Senators
elected to this Senate, and not one of them said they supported
President Obama's scheme. Not one of them. They steadfastly opposed it.
So in this lameduck Congress, the attempt is being made to move this
new lawless agenda forward out of fear that it might not be so
popularly received next year.
Is Congress hopeless, helpless, ineffectual? Is it not able to stop
this? Absolutely not. Congress has the power to control what the
President does. It has the power to control what he spends money on.
The President, the executive branch, cannot spend one dime that has not
been approved by the U.S. Congress. He can't spend more on roads,
highways, schools, defense, education, or health care that Congress has
not appropriated and not approved. So Congress has a responsibility and
a duty here. Congress should fund no program, should allow no
Presidential expenditure to be spent on programs it deems are unworthy.
It absolutely has a responsibility to ensure this President spends no
money to execute policies that are plainly in violation of existing
law.
This Congress has a constitutional duty, no matter what Members may
feel about the substance of the issue. I have opinions on that. I
oppose the President's substantive position. But as a matter of law,
separation of powers, and constitutional duty, this Congress should
stop the expenditure of Federal funds for projects that Congress has
rejected and are not worthy of funding. Congress has deliberated these
issues. This is not something it has not considered before. It has
rejected this policy.
The special interests have spent, according to one independent group,
$1.5 billion to try to ram through Congress an immigration plan the
American people reject and that Congress has refused to pass. The
President hasn't given up, and these special interests haven't given
up, despite the election and despite the wishes of the American people.
They want their policies and they are going to ram them through this
Congress, if they possibly can, no matter what the people think. That
is a threat to representative democracy. It is a threat to the laws of
this country. And the Congress needs to say no.
Let us be specific now. People may think: Well, you may not expend
money if you don't prosecute somebody. So how are we going to complain
about that, Senator Sessions? Well, let us look at this. This is from
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is charged with
processing the applications of people who wish to enter the country
lawfully. Broadcast on Monday, December 1--just this week--at 11:52.
Subject: Today's email news.
USCIS is taking steps to open a new operational center in
Crystal City, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, to
accommodate about 1,000 full-time, permanent Federal and
contract employees in a variety of positions and grade
levels. The initial workload will include cases filed as a
result of the executive actions on immigration announced on
November 20, 2014. Many job opportunities at the operational
center will be announced in the coming days and please
continue to monitor USAJOBS if you are interested.
This is just days from now.
Now let's put this little chart up. This briefly continues on what
they published. This is right off their email.
Current vacancies include: Special Assistant GS-12.
Boy, a lot of people in the country would like to be a GS-12.
Arlington, Virginia, today. Special Assistant GS-15,
Arlington, Virginia. Today. Chief of Staff GS-15, Arlington,
Virginia. Today.
It goes on, today, today, today, today. They are rushing this
through. They are determined to get this done before the American
people can find
[[Page S6328]]
out what is happening, to raise their voice, to communicate with their
Members of Congress and the Senate and stop it. This is not good for
this country.
You may say: Well, Jeff, surely the President hasn't overreached in
these matters. But Congress has stated you cannot enter the country
unlawfully. That is a fundamental principle of our immigration law that
has been on the books for many years. If you enter unlawfully, you are
not entitled to work in America. And if you enter unlawfully and
attempt to work and someone hires you and knows that you are illegally
here, the employer is subject to criminal penalties and other
penalties. That is the basic law. It has been on the books for years.
The President is just wiping that off the books, colleagues.
Are we going to accept this? Are we going to allow the President to
just wipe out duly passed laws to create an entirely new system of
immigration that Congress refused to establish? Our laws are on the
books today. He has no power to reduce and erase those laws.
How serious is this? Last night former Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich--Ph.D. in history, a student of American government, author of
quite a number of books--made some dramatic statements about the
meaning of this Presidential action, and we should hear it, colleagues.
This is the former Speaker of the House, a student of American history
and government. This is what he says about what is happening today. We
cannot be oblivious to this, because what happens today will set trends
and policies for tomorrow. He said:
Obama funding new staff and offices without congressional
approval is step toward kingship or dictatorship. He must be
stopped now.
How much clearer can it be than that? He goes on to say, in another
tweet here:
Congress should only approve very short spending bill to
set up fight in January on Obama unconstitutional power grab.
No long term CR.
Here is the third one from last night:
Our entire constitutional structure is at stake. The new
Obama power grab is the greatest threat to freedom since King
George Third.
Those are quotes from Newt Gingrich. I am telling you, this is not a
little bitty matter, and we have to fully understand the nature of what
is happening here. Congress refused to pass what the President is
enacting right now by Executive order and he has no power to do it. He
should not be doing it. He may well be stopped by lawsuits in years to
come, but Congress has the power to stop it now. We don't have to allow
money to be spent in Arlington, Crystal City, VA, to hire 1,000 people
to process these applications.
Now, how are things going in our immigration system today? I wish I
could report better circumstances than we have. The situation was grave
even before this action. On May 20, last year, National Citizenship and
Immigration Services Council president, representing thousands of USCIS
workers, issued a statement.
Colleagues, we need to know what has happened. It is unbelievable.
This is a person directly engaged with the people who do the work
every day, the law officers who go out there and try to adjudicate
these immigration cases.
USCIS adjudications officers are pressured to rubber stamp
applications instead of conducting diligent case review and
investigation. The culture at USCIS encourages all
applications to be approved, discouraging proper
investigation into red flags and discouraging the denial of
any applications. USCIS has been turned into an ``approval
machine.''
This is an absolute abdication of the responsibility the Congress and
the American people have given to the President as the Chief Executive
Officer and given all the way down to the lowest USCIS officer. They
are not to be a rubberstamp machine. They are not to be an approval
machine. They are to serve the interests of the American people. They
are to evaluate applications and do so carefully and fairly and
consistently. They are to investigate red flags.
What is he talking about when he says red flags? He is talking about
threats, criminals, terrorists.
Even Secretary Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, testifying a
few days ago, acknowledged that of these 4 million or 5 million people
who are going to be applying for legal status in America through the
President's program, there is no way their applications are going to be
evaluated. If they say they came to the country in 1999, nobody is
going to check on that. They are not going to see if they graduated
from some school or had some job somewhere and investigate it. They are
simply going to act on the paperwork they have been given. And in many
cases--in the bill that President Obama supported earlier last year--
there would not be any face-to-face meetings. They wouldn't even go
into an office and actually see the person. It would all be submitted
by email and documents, which is highly risky, as the experts told us.
They need to see the person because they may not be the person they say
they are. They could just submit paperwork, get citizenship status, and
nobody would have any idea whether they are worthy of being in the
United States.
The situation is graver than a lot of people think. It is our duty to
legitimately represent the people in our country who believe this
system is supposed to work. They sent us here. We say we have an
immigration law in America. Well, good. And then we end up here. It is
not so good. It is not working at all.
What are we supposed to do? We are sorry, constituents. We are sorry
you voted for us. I know we told you we wanted to do stuff to make this
system better and we are going to end all this, but we will worry about
that tomorrow--and we are going to do something.
For 40 years Congress and Presidents have been promising to fix this
system. The problem is, the special interests have won every time. The
special interests have blocked the kind of reforms that create a system
that we know will serve our national interests, will be fair to
immigrants who apply, and help the American people live better lives.
To make a couple of more points. October 28 of this year, Mr. Kenneth
Palinkas, the president of the association of 12,000 officers--issued
this statement:
We are still the world's rubber stamp for entry into the
United States--regardless of the ramifications of the
constant violations to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Whether it's the failure to uphold the public charge law, the
abuse of our asylum procedures, the admission of Islamist
radicals, or visas for health risks, the taxpayers are being
fleeced and public safety is being endangered on a daily
basis.
That is what Mr. Palinkas said. Has anybody ever called him to
testify and to lay out these dangers? Certainly not the U.S. Senate.
President Obama has his secret meetings with businesses and activist
groups--people with their big money and their contributions. He met
with them all summer. Did he meet with Mr. Palinkas? No. Did he meet
with the head of the ICE officers association? No. Mr. Palinkas pleaded
and asked to be admitted so he could lay out the problems they face on
a daily basis, and it was rejected.
Mr. Palinkas goes on to say:
I write today to warn the general public that this
situation is about to get exponentially worse--and more
dangerous. America dodged a bullet when the Senate
immigration package S. 744 was blocked by the House. That
legislation would have been a financial security catastrophe.
But news reports have leaked information to the public of a
USCIS management contract bid for a ``surge'' printing of 34
million green cards and employment authorization documents to
be provided to foreign nationals, a bid that predicts the
Administration's promised executive amnesty.
Think about what this officer is telling us. It is true. He goes on
to say:
That is why this statement is intended for the public: If
you care about your immigration security and your
neighborhood security, you must act now to ensure that
Congress stops this unilateral amnesty. Let your voice be
heard and spread the word to your neighbors. We who serve in
our nation's immigration agencies are pleading for your
help--don't let this happen. Express your concern to your
Senators and Congressmen before it is too late.
That was October 28 of this year. He also issued this statement on
May 20 of last year:
USCIS officers who identify illegal aliens that, in
accordance with law should be placed into immigration removal
proceedings before a federal judge, are prevented from
exercising their authority and responsibility to issue
Notices to Appear.
It goes on to say:
The attitude of USCIS management--These are the political
appointees, appointed
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by the President to execute his views of immigration.
The attitude of USCIS management is not that the Agency
serves the American public or the laws of the United States,
or public safety and national security, but instead that the
agency serves illegal aliens and the attorneys which
represent them.
What a statement. Who is the government supposed to represent? We
represent the people of the United States who are lawfully here.
While we believe in treating all people with respect, we
are concerned that this agency tasked with such a vital
security mission is too greatly influenced by special
interest groups.
Boy, that is the truth. We had in one day Microsoft--a great
company--demanding that more workers be allowed to come into the
country so that they can work, in the same week they announced laying
off 18,000.
In September of this year, Mr. Palinkas issued this statement:
Many millions come legally to the U.S. through our wide
open immigration policy every year--whether as temporary
visitors, lifetime immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers,
foreign students, or recipients of our ``visa waiver
program'' which allows people to come and go freely. Yet our
government cannot effectively track these foreign visitors
and immigrants. And those who defraud authorities will face
no consequences at all in most cases. Our caseworkers cannot
even do in-person interviews for people seeking citizenship,
they cannot enforce restrictions on welfare use, and they
even lack the basic office space to properly function.
Applications for entry are rubber-stamped, the result of
grading agents by speed rather than discretion. We've become
a clearinghouse for the world.
Now that is the truth and anybody who knows what is going on in our
system knows it. The President's action will beget even more
lawlessness in the future. It is a statement to the world: No matter
what the law says, you come to America, you get to stay. You will not
be deported.
This is a recipe for disaster. It cannot work. What we need in this
country, and can achieve if Congress and the President will act, is to
create a lawful system and enforce the law. We need to make it a system
that we can be proud of and that is fairly applied. We need a system
that ends the ability of people to defraud our country and come in
unlawfully, and to serve the interest of working Americans.
That is what it is all about: Are we serving their interest, or are
we listening to special interests--political groups and activist
groups, politicians who think they gain political advantage, and
certain businesses who want more, cheaper labor? Don't we represent the
vast majority of the people? Isn't there a national interest--an
interest of the American people? Somebody needs to defend that
interest. It has been lost in this process.
I yield the floor.
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