[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12543-12545]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE ACTIONS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, a few weeks ago I wrote my colleagues a 
letter that had a serious front line about policies being executed, we 
are told, by the President that would seriously undermine the 
constitutional structure of our Republic and give to the President 
powers that would allow him to take powers he had never been given.
  Subsequent to that, a George Washington law professor, Mr. Jonathan 
Turley, remarked during recent congressional testimony:

       When President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress [he was 
     referring to his State of the Union Address] he received 
     rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing 
     to make practically irrelevant.

  Professor Turley emphasized that the ``most serious violations, in my 
view, are various cases where he went to Congress, as in the 
immigration field, as in the health care field, asked for very specific 
things and was rejected and then decided just to order those on his 
own.''
  He testified before a House committee. Professor Turley I think has 
been known as a Democrat. I think he said he supported President 
Obama's election. He is not a partisan person. He is an observer who 
has testified before Congress many times and is well respected, and 
that statement should cause concern on the part of every Member of 
Congress.
  Is it so? Is it so that he asked for the very specific things that 
were rejected by Congress and he decided to just order them with his 
pen on his own?
  The primary immigration action Professor Turley was referring to was 
the President's decision to implement the DREAM Act by fiat, providing 
administrative amnesty and work permits to an entire class of illegal 
immigrants.
  Professor Turley described it as `` . . . the clear circumvention of 
Congress. And for Congress not to act in my view borders on self-
loathing.''
  Is that a serious comment? I think it is exactly right. He is exactly 
right on this. Has Congress no gumption at all?
  Multiple news reports have now made it clear that the President is 
now considering an Executive immigration action on a scale so far and 
indeed beyond our own imagination. Here is how that action was 
described by the National Journal, a prestigious publication in our 
country. This is the poster. This is what the National Journal 
reported: ``President Plans To Expand Unilateral Executive Amnesty.''
  Executive amnesty means the Chief Executive, the President, expanding 
Executive amnesty including work permits for illegal immigrants and 
visa overstays.

       Obama made it clear he would press his executive powers to 
     the limit.

  I would say well beyond the limit, according to Professor Turley. The 
article continues:

       He gave quiet credence to recommendations from La Raza and 
     other immigration groups that between 5 million to 6 million 
     adult illegal immigrants could be spared deportation under a 
     similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so-
     called Dreamers in June 2012.

  The article is referring to the DREAM Act that the President 
executed. One of the things that I think is extremely important, 
colleagues, is that what they are suggesting is that 5 million to 6 
million people will be given a document that basically provides them 
legal status in America. The article continues:

       Obama has now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice 
     departments to find--

  Ordered them to find--

     Executive authorities that could enlarge that non-
     prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10.

  That is all with the DREAM Act. 10 times that which was done. 
Continuing:

       Senior officials also tell me Obama wants to see what he 
     can do with executive power to provide temporary legal status 
     to undocumented adults.

  This is 5 million to 6 million. That is what a factor of 10 means. 
That is maybe more than half of the people who are illegally in the 
country today. Congress has considered these matters at great length 
and Congress set the law as to how someone enters the country lawfully 
and how someone enters the country, in effect, unlawfully and what is 
acceptable and what is not acceptable.
  The President is the chief law enforcement officer in America. The 
FBI, DEA, Border Patrol officers, ICE officers, Attorney General all 
work for him, and the leaders of those organizations serve at his 
pleasure. He can remove them at will if they don't carry out his 
policies.
  He has ordered the Homeland Security and Justice Departments, to find 
Executive authorities--not to see if they could find them but to find 
them--because he has a policy he wants to carry out and Congress 
doesn't agree with him.
  I will read another poster quoting Professor Turley. He talks about 
the danger, colleagues. This is dangerous.

[[Page 12544]]

  Does anybody not respect this institution? Do we not respect the 
House of Representatives, the Senate? Have we become so partisan that 
we don't care what the President does to diminish Congress? Don't we 
have an institutional responsibility, a constitutional responsibility 
to defend the legitimate powers of Congress?
  Sure, we can disagree sometimes, but this one is not a matter of 
disagreement, it seems to me. This is an overreach of dramatic 
proportions.
  Professor Turley said:

       The President's pledge to effectively govern alone is 
     alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill 
     that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become 
     a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the 
     framers sought to avoid.

  Certainly they sought to avoid that. They were very suspicious and 
aware that the tendency of chief executive officers is to assume more 
power than they are given. So they created a strong Congress and they 
gave certain powers to Congress that could not be delegated to the 
executive branch.
  Professor Turley, in his most recent testimony before the House Rules 
Committee--I believe last week--said:

       What we're witnessing today is one of the greatest crises 
     that members of this body will face . . . It has reached a 
     constitutional tipping point that threatens a fundamental 
     change in how our country is governed.

  No matter what somebody thinks about immigration issues or health 
care issues, there are limits on what the President can do without 
Congress.
  So the President says: Congress will not act; therefore, I have to 
act.
  Have you ever heard that? They used to say Federal judges would say 
that. They would say: The legislature will not act. Governor King will 
not act. The court has to act.
  That is not so. That is so bogus. If a Governor decides not to act, 
if a Congress decides not to act, if a State legislature decides not to 
act and do what some President would like to see done, that is a 
decision. It is every bit as real and firm a decision as if they had 
passed a law. If they are asked to pass a law and they say no, that is 
a decision reached through the legislative branch by people duly 
elected from all over this country who come to this Congress to pass 
laws.
  I am very frustrated that my Democratic colleagues are not 
sufficiently concerned about it, and we certainly need more discussion 
from the loyal opposition, the Republicans on this question.
  Do my Democratic colleagues express concern about it? Not that I have 
seen. They seem to celebrate it.
  The newspaper, El Diario, quotes New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, 
saying:

       Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Friday that he has ``no 
     doubt'' that President Barack Obama will deliver on his 
     promise to take executive action on immigration despite the 
     current attention on the unaccompanied minors crisis.

  It goes on to be quoted there as saying:

       One executive action that Senator Menendez and other 
     Democrats are pushing for is the expansion of Deferred Action 
     for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides deportation 
     reprieve and work permits to undocumented youth.

  Colleagues, it is one thing to be less than vigorous in carrying out 
deportations as the law requires; it is quite another class of action 
to give people who are unlawfully in the country a document from the 
President that says you can work and stay in the country--to give them 
legal status when Congress has considered this and rejected it. It is 
beyond the power of the President.
  I wrote a letter to my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, before 
this testimony about these planned executive actions that I had been 
reading about. I said they would amount to an--

       . . . executive nullification of our borders as an 
     enforceable national boundary, [guaranteeing] that the 
     current illegal immigration disaster would only further 
     worsen and destabilize.

  We cannot provide continuous amnesty on a regular basis and ever 
expect everybody not to attempt to come to the country if they believe 
they, too, in a manner of years--maybe now even fewer years--will be 
rewarded for their unlawful act by being put on a path to citizenship 
or permanent status.
  So I therefore make two requests today:
  I believe any border legislation that is sent to the Senate by the 
House of Representatives should include specific language denying the 
President any funds to execute his planned work permits. Congress 
clearly has that power. We can appropriate or not appropriate money. We 
can say that money cannot be spent for this or that thing. So we have 
every right to say the President should not spend money delivering work 
permits to people whom Congress has declared to not be lawfully able to 
work in America. I believe the President's actions are in clear 
contravention of the law, and I feel strongly about that.
  Second, I am calling on every Senate Democratic colleague to stand up 
and be counted. Senator Cruz has a bill that would stop this 
Presidential overreach. It is very simple. It lays out that we won't 
spend money providing legal documents to people unlawfully in the 
country as defined by the law of America and as defined by the Congress 
of the United States.
  So I ask: Will you cosponsor Senator Cruz's bill, and let us defend 
our constituents? Or, will our congressional colleagues remain 
complicit in the nullification of our laws and basically the 
nullification of border enforcement?
  I would make a final note on what we owe to the citizens of this 
country. President Obama's illegal work permits add to the already huge 
flow of lawful work permits issued by the Federal Government. Between 
2000 and 2013, we lawfully issued almost 30 million work and 
immigration visas. To put that number in perspective, 30 million is 
about the entire population of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala 
combined.
  This matter and our situation today are in disarray as a result of 
confused and politically driven thinking by this administration. It 
just is. I wish it weren't so, but it is. Obama administration 
officials have gone so far as to describe amnesty as a civil right. 
That is an argument against the very idea of a nation-state and the 
idea of a nation's borders. Of course there is, and can be, no civil 
right to enter a country unlawfully and then to demand lawful status 
and even citizenship. Of course there is not. How could this possibly 
be, that the Attorney General of the United States of America would 
assert that people have a constitutional right to enter unlawfully and 
be given amnesty? That is the kind of thinking which has got us into 
this fix, and it has encouraged the flow of unlawful immigration.
  The actual legal rights that are being violated here today I suggest 
are the rights of the American citizens.
  As Civil Rights Commission Member Peter Kirsanow warned, our African-
American citizens often are the ones who are hurt the most, as well as 
recent immigrant arrivals and working Americans. What about their 
rights? They have sweat and bled and died for this country, been called 
on to serve and responded, paid their taxes, raised their children, 
tried to do the right thing day after day. What about their rights? 
What about the right of every citizen to the protections our 
immigration laws afford? Will no one rise to their defense?
  We need an immigration policy that helps all residents--including 
millions of immigrants who have come to America. We want to help them 
rise into the middle class and above. We need rising wages, not falling 
wages. We can't help those living here today if we keep bringing in 
record numbers of new workers to compete for their jobs, to drive up 
unemployment, and then pull down wages. That is just a fact.
  After decades of large-scale immigration, and with large illegal 
immigration flows in addition, we need to get serious and establish a 
principled policy of immigration and consistently enforce it, a policy 
that is honorable, that we can be proud of, and that serves the 
interests of all Americans--especially working Americans. These are the 
people who have made our country great. They deserve our attention and 
compassion, too. Middle

[[Page 12545]]

America has been decent and right on this issue from the beginning.
  For 40 years American people have called on Congress and called on 
their Presidents to create a lawful immigration system they can be 
proud of that serves the national interests and serves their interests. 
But what have they gotten? Nothing but more illegality and more demands 
for amnesty. The leaders of their country have not listened to them, 
and they aren't listening now. It appears to me the leaders of this 
country are not very interested in what the American people think.
  The President plans to dramatically exceed his powers. It is the 
latest example of rejecting what the American people have asked for and 
it is a breathtaking violation of congressional power. It cannot be 
allowed to happen. We need to defend our Constitution, we need to 
defend the rule of law, and we need to defend the powers of Congress--
and, at bottom, to defend legitimate rights, interests, and desires of 
the people who sent us here.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. 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. Mr. President, I know the Chair serves as a member of 
the Budget Committee, as I am the ranking Republican on that committee. 
We have gotten a CBO, Congressional Budget Office, analysis--our 
official scorekeeper of spending--on the part of the proposal the 
President has presented to spend $4.346 billion to deal with the 
Southwest border crisis. What CBO has done is provided its cost 
estimates of the President's recent supplemental request for the 
Southwest border.
  Significantly, CBO's analysis suggests that only $25 million of the 
$4.346 billion request will be spent this year. This indicates clearly 
that the agencies are not in dire need of supplemental funding from 
this Congress, certainly not in the degree asked for.
  Again, CBO's analysis suggests that only $25 million out of the $4.3 
billion request will be spent this year. What does that mean? It means 
we ought to slow down. There is no basis to demand a $4.3 billion 
increase in emergency spending. Every dollar borrowed--because we are 
already in debt. To spend $4 billion more is to borrow every penny of 
it. We should not do that until we find out more about what is 
happening at our border.
  Twenty-five million dollars is a lot of money in itself. The Homeland 
Security and other agencies, Health and Human Services, have monies 
they can apply to these problems.
  I am not saying no money is needed now, because we want to treat 
children and be helpful and treat them in a humanitarian way and a 
compassionate way. But we don't need $4 billion. That is clear. And we 
are not to be doing that. Thank goodness, the House of Representatives 
is looking at it carefully. They need to reject this request out of 
hand.
  Colleagues, the fundamental problem here is that when the President 
of the United States did his DACA bill, when he did his DREAM Act 
Executive order, what did he do? He basically said: We are not going to 
deport young people. Then we began to see this surge of young people 
coming to America, and we are not deporting them effectively. They are 
being taken in, turned over to HHS, found housing, turned over to 
whoever comes and picks them up even if they are not citizens and not 
lawfully here. They are not being deported. So more have come in record 
numbers.
  I guess, first of all, the very idea that we would spend--I guess for 
that project--$3.7 billion is a stunning amount of money. It is a huge 
amount of money at a time when we don't need to be borrowing money more 
than we have to. So I believe and would say to our colleagues, this 
plan does not call for the expenditure of money this year except for 
$25 million, and therefore we are not in a crisis that demands us to 
produce billions of dollars in revenue for this President to continue 
to carry out policies that only encourage more people to come to 
America and cost us even more in the time to come.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

                          ____________________