[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9887-9890]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             UNITED STATES V. TEXAS SUPREME COURT DECISION

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today the Supreme Court, in the case of 
the United States v. Texas, rendered an interim victory for the rule of 
law in America. It is a victory for the constitutional process by which 
Congress passes laws, and the President faithfully executes those laws. 
He has taken an oath to do that. He is the chief law enforcement 
officer in America, and Congress is the body that passes and makes 
laws. We have immigration laws, most of which have been on the books 
for many years. They reflect the decided view of the government and 
people of the United States of America. Those laws must be enforced in 
an effective and consistent way.
  The decision that was made today means that the injunction issued 
below stands, at least on an interim basis. In other words, an order 
was issued by the lower court to block the President of the United 
States from carrying out a series of actions that he wants to carry 
out, but could not because he lacks the authority. It is a huge, 
significant constitutional matter.
  If you remember, colleagues, it wasn't too long ago that we had a 
national debate and vote about reforming immigration laws in the United 
States. I believe that was not a good reform. We debated it and it 
failed in the Congress. It did not get the support of both Houses, 
although it did get the support of the Senate. The proposal failed. The 
American people spoke clearly on it. They contacted us in large 
numbers.
  People began to understand that the bill would not be effective in 
doing what it promised to do; that is, to end the illegality. It was 
going to be effective in granting amnesty to virtually everybody 
unlawfully in the country today, but it would not have been able to 
carry out an effective and lawful system for the future. That is what I 
believe. I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 years. We tried to read the 
law and make sure it was effective; but this law was not effective.
  So the President just decided: ``I am going to use my pen and I am 
going to

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issue orders to all of the executive departments and agencies that are 
obliged to enforce the laws of the United States and I am going to tell 
them to do what the Congress rejected. I am going to execute an amnesty 
by the signing of my pen that legalizes everyone in the country here 
today.''
  It is an unbelievable overreach, a matter of tremendous import, and 
it is an affront to the legislative process. It is an affront to the 
majority of the American people who want a lawful system of 
immigration--one that serves their interests, serves the interest of 
America, the national interest, not some special interest that wants 
cheaper labor, and not some political interest that is looking for 
votes--but what is the policy that best serves the American people. 
That is what this issue is all about.
  The Supreme Court, by a 4-to-4 vote, concluded that the injunction 
should remain; that is, they blocked the President, at least on the 
portion of the Executive orders that were before the Court. He has done 
some other things that were not before the Court, and I think would be 
at risk, too, if properly challenged, but they haven't made it to the 
Court yet.
  If my colleagues remember, the judge heard the case and issued an 
injunction, blocking the President from going forward with his own plan 
for immigration and one that Congress had rejected. Then the United 
States Court of Appeals ruled that the judge was correct, and now, by a 
4-to-4 vote, the ruling of the Fifth Circuit has been upheld.
  In November of 2014, the Obama administration went on strike. It just 
announced: ``We are not going to follow the requirements and the laws 
of the United States with regard to immigration.''
  President Obama said: ``I am going to direct my offices to carry out 
a policy that I think should be the national policy. I am sorry 
Congress didn't pass it, and the historic law remains in place, but I 
am going to direct my officers not to do it.''
  That is what he did. In effect, it was a seizing of the enforcement 
of immigration law in so many key ways. Under the guise of what he 
called exercising prosecutorial discretion, his orders directed law 
enforcement officers not to enforce plain law, forcing them to violate 
their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the 
United States and his own oath, which is to see that the laws are 
faithfully executed. In so doing, he effectively eliminated entire 
sections in the United States Code.
  Not only did President Obama direct his officers and agents, all of 
whom are in the executive branch under his supervision as the President 
of the United States--the Chief Executive--he ordered those agencies of 
the Department of Homeland Security not to follow the plain law. He 
further decreed that those who came here illegally and had children in 
the United States would be allowed to stay in the United States and be 
granted work permits and access to certain Federal benefits--people who 
entered the country unlawfully.
  No wonder Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have such low 
morale.
  An objective Federal study that is done every year or periodically 
evaluates the morale of the Federal officers in the United States 
found, I think again this year, that the morale of the Department of 
Homeland Security is the lowest of any Federal agency. Why is this? 
Because they have been ordered not to do their duty. They put their 
lives on the lines in dangerous circumstances, and they arrest people, 
they bring them in, and what happens? They are not deported. They are 
released on bail or some sort of promise to appear, and they go into 
the country as they planned to do all along.
  This is extremely discouraging for our officers and agents. It is 
wrong, it should not happen, and it is a cause of the increasing number 
of illegal immigrants we have in the Nation today.
  In fact, I say to my colleagues, a few years ago, the Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement Officers Association filed a lawsuit against 
Secretary Janet Napolitano and John Morton--their supervisors--and said 
that you are ordering us to violate our oath to enforce the law. I have 
never seen a lawsuit like this, thousands of officers suing their 
supervisors for ordering them not to do their duty. This is wrong. It 
lowers morale.
  When you have that kind of situation, what message does it send to 
the world? It sends a message to the world that if you can get into the 
United States, you are going to be successful, you can stay here, and 
you don't have to come according to the procedures in law. We have seen 
an increase in lawlessness in recent years. In fact, it looks like this 
year, among a number of categories, we have already reached the same 
level of arrests we did in all of last fiscal year. So we are having a 
rather significant increase again this year.
  Well, what happened? Over half the States in the United States filed 
a lawsuit in Federal court. Judge Andrew Hanen in the United States 
District Court for the Southern District of Texas, heard the case. It 
went on for a considerable amount of time. The Department of Justice 
defended President Obama's actions. So the top lawyers in the U.S. 
Department of Justice went to Texas, they defended the administration, 
and they were opposed by more than half of the States. Judge Hanen 
heard the case and he issued an injunction. He said: Mr. President, you 
are changing the regulations of the United States that have been issued 
pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act. You are changing 
those, and before you can change regulations, you have to be able to go 
through a process. You have to have notice and opportunity for people 
to be heard and objections to be made before the regulations can be 
altered. That was basically the decision he rendered.
  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the 
injunction, and today's decision confirms that the Obama 
administration's lawless plans may not proceed.
  But the fight is far from over. The case will now be sent back to 
Judge Hanen for additional litigation on the merits, and the ultimate 
outcome remains uncertain.
  To issue a stay and block a Federal agency from going forward with a 
rule or regulation, a Federal court must find that the opposition 
litigants have a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits. I 
think this decision indicates Judge Hanen, the Fifth Circuit, and even 
the Supreme Court believe it is likely the States would prevail on the 
merits of their challenge.
  What is clear, as highlighted by the egregious, unethical conduct of 
the lawyers of the U.S. Department of Justice, is that the Obama 
administration will stop at nothing to advance its agenda. I worked at 
the Department of Justice for almost 15 years--and we worked our hearts 
out to always be faithful and operate with integrity before the Federal 
judges, and always, since we were representatives of the United States 
of America, made sure every representation we made to the Court was 
accurate and had a high standard. Most assistant U.S. attorneys and 
Department of Justice lawyers should know that and adhere to that at 
the highest level. Other lawyers frequently don't, private attorneys 
don't, but the Federal attorneys representing the people of the United 
States of America have that high duty.
  Well, what happened? Judge Hanen found that the administration was 
determined to go forward with these unlawful actions, even though he 
had ordered them to stop, and they appeared to cause some substantial 
violation of the integrity of their Department. I believe they are 
going to have a further hearing soon on whether there will be 
additional penalties. He already imposed a penalty on the Department of 
Justice lawyers for their improper conduct, for which he severely 
condemned them.
  The message this administration is sending to the world is that if 
you can get here, you can stay here.
  According to official statistics from U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection, the number of so-called family units who have been 
apprehended at the southern border has already exceeded

[[Page 9889]]

the number who were apprehended in all of fiscal year 2015. 
Approximately, 12 percent more so-called family units were apprehended 
through May than were apprehended through all of last year. Total 
apprehensions of all aliens appear to be on the rise, which is an 
indice of increased illegality into this country.
  Last month, the head of the National Border Patrol Council testified 
before the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, which 
I chair, that for every alien apprehended at the border by the U.S. 
Border Patrol, we could assume at least one evaded detection. He said 
they are catching half of the people who enter, and they apprehended 
more than 300,000 illegally into the country last year.
  He further testified--this is important, critically important and 
shows the extreme nature of the Obama administration's policies with 
regard to immigration--that of the half who are apprehended, at least 
80 percent of those are released into the country and not deported. 
They are told: OK. Come back to court. Sometimes they have a bail, 
sometimes they don't.
  At another hearing, a Federal agency official testified that they 
take young people to their destination city when they are apprehended. 
What does that mean? It means that if somebody enters the country and 
they are 17 years of age and they don't know what to do with them, 
instead of deporting them and sending them back at that time, they say: 
Where did you intend to go? Well, my destination was Chicago. So the 
Federal Government takes them to Chicago, turns them over to a cousin 
or an uncle or an aunt or whatever. There is no effort to ascertain 
whether the person they are turned over to is legally in the country or 
not either.
  So this is the kind of thing that is causing such disturbance within 
the law enforcement field, and that is so discouraging to them.
  The extent to which the administration has directed its officers not 
to enforce plain law is one of the most brazen acts of legal 
disobedience in the history of America. Could the next President refuse 
to enforce tax laws? Could the next President say: I don't like this 
tax, I believe this tax is too high, or I don't believe we should tax 
these entities so he tells his subordinate units, the head of the IRS, 
just like he tells the head of Homeland Security, don't enforce this 
law. I know that Congress passed it, but I don't think it is a fair 
tax. Don't collect it and tell everybody in the country that if you 
don't pay that tax, you can be certain the IRS is not going to spend 
its time and effort to collect it, so you are home free. That is the 
kind of logic we are dealing with.
  These unlawful actions fly in the face of what the American people 
have asked for. Yet, despite having the Obama Administration having the 
most radical immigration policies in our Nation's history, former 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised to go even further.
  I am astounded at some of the things she has declared. She promises 
to deport only those who commit violent felonies or happen to be 
terrorists. Anybody else can come in, get in illegally, sell drugs, get 
caught for fraud, get caught for fraudulent ID, credit card fraud, and 
all those kinds of things, but as long as they are not committing a 
violent crime, they never get sent home. They get to stay here. How is 
this in harmony with the will of the American people to have a lawful 
system of immigration, one that protects their public safety, protects 
them from criminal activity, protects them from terrorism and those 
kind of things? It is breathtaking to me.
  Moreover, if Secretary Clinton is provided with the ability as 
President to appoint a new Justice to the Supreme Court, the outcome of 
this case might change. Who knows? But it certainly is clear that she 
has been vigorously critical of the decision and says it is correct, 
essentially. She said this in her statement today: ``Today's decision 
by the Supreme Court is purely procedural, casts no doubt on the fact 
that DAPA and DACA,'' these amnesty programs, ``are entirely within the 
President's legal authority.'' She says this is entirely within the 
President's authority.
  Well, again, let me remind you what the President did. On the issue 
before the Supreme Court, he not only said to 4 million adults that 
they will not be deported, he declared that they are able to work. He 
has given them work authorization when the laws of the United States 
don't allow people illegally here to take jobs. Not only that, he gave 
them the right to Social Security. He gives them Social Security 
numbers. They will pay into Social Security and be able to get Social 
Security, Medicare, and other programs. Basically, he gave illegal 
persons established by the laws of the United States the ability to 
participate as American citizens on virtually every matter of 
importance. It is unacceptable.
  Former Secretary Clinton said that she will introduce ``comprehensive 
immigration reform with a path to citizenship'' within the first 100 
days of her Presidency. In other words, she would give legal status, 
citizenship, to everybody who has come into the country illegally. It 
is a damaging thing. It has remarkable consequences and impacts on the 
legal system, and it also incentivizes more people to come to America.
  The American people have every right to demand that our very generous 
legal immigration flow be followed according to the law and that it 
reflect their wishes. The American people are good and decent people. 
They are not asking for anything extreme. What is extreme is this idea 
that we systematically refuse to guarantee the laws of the United 
States be executed. The actions and policies advanced by President 
Obama, and apparently even more radical policies by Secretary Clinton, 
are radical things; they are not traditional in any way. They are 
directly contrary to our constitutional principles and the clear will 
of the American people. They must be stopped.
  We have a generous immigration system. We have 1.1 million at least--
I think it may now be even closer to 1.2 million people every year. 
That is more than any nation in the world. So it is a remarkable thing 
that we do. In addition to that, at any given time there are 700,000 
people in the United States, foreign born, who take jobs in the United 
States. These are supposed to be temporary jobs for the most part. A 
lot of them are basically permanent jobs that can be reupped and 
reextended.
  We don't have enough jobs for the American people now. We have a 
surplus of labor in this country. If you believe in free markets, 
colleagues, that is why, since 1999 until last year, median household 
income in America is down $4,000 per family. A big part of that is an 
excessive labor flow into the United States. It is not disputable, 
colleagues.
  Look at the great professor on this, Professor Borjas of Harvard. 
Born in Cuba himself, he came here as a young person. Dr. Borjas shows 
that an excessive labor flow pulls down wages. Why would it not? It is 
a commonsense, free market principle. He documented it through labor 
reports, census data, and there is no doubt about it. We are hammering 
American working people. Their lives are being diminished while some 
make more money because they pay a lower wage.
  I am not saying we are going to end immigration. Nobody is talking 
about that. But we have extremely high immigration levels legally, and 
on top of that we have this massive illegality. So the first thing the 
American people have asked us to do is end the illegality, please. They 
have been pleading for that for 30 years, and all we have here is some 
complaint about any bill that actually takes a step toward that end 
getting blocked. We can't even get votes on amendments.
  I just want to say that I think the American people are correct. Any 
nation state that sees itself as sovereign, sees itself as having a 
loyalty to its own people, should protect those people from unfair 
policies, should defend their legitimate interests, and we are not 
doing it.
  We are pulling down wages right now. There are people that don't have 
jobs today. We have the lowest percentage

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of Americans with a job than we have had in 40 years. Last month we 
created 38,000 jobs--a paltry, shockingly low number. It sent some 
shock waves through the business community. We need to have close to 
200,000 a month. We are bringing in almost 100,000 immigrants a month.
  From 2000 to 2014--14 years--the native born population of the United 
States has increased throughout that period by millions. How many jobs 
were created and how many jobs did native born Americans get during 
that period? None. The actual number of workers from 2000 to 2014 went 
down. All jobs that were created during that period of time went to the 
foreign born. Is it any surprise that wages have fallen? Is it any 
surprise that we have gone from around a low $50,000-a-year median 
American income for a family to $4,000 less? It is simple.
  Somebody needs to talk about this and defend the legitimate concerns 
of families in this country and working Americans.
  I want to say a couple more things. The outcome of this Court ruling 
is not going to cause any major change in what is happening today; in 
fact, we have been living under the policies that the Court ordered for 
some time now. It is not going to change. We are not going to have any 
mass roundups as people have suggested. That is ridiculous. The 
President has ordered, basically, an end to deportation except for 
those who commit serious crimes. Secretary Clinton has said the crime 
has to be a violent crime or terrorism connected before they get 
deported. So we are heading in that direction.
  This is not a sound policy for America.
  We are going to have to work our way through the many difficulties we 
have in the future, but the simple demand we have from the majority of 
the people, I believe, is to end the illegality. Do that first, and 
then we will talk about what we are going to do next about the people 
who have been here for a long time.
  A lot of people just came. They just used a fraudulent identification 
or drove across the border or they were caught and released on bail and 
went to Los Angeles or Chicago or somewhere. Do they get to demand to 
be given legal status in America? Do they get to demand to be made a 
citizen when other people around the world who have waited for their 
time may never get into the United States because they don't qualify? 
That is the question we are facing.
  I truly believe that we believe in immigration as Americans in this 
country. We are always going to have immigration, but the level of it 
and the nature of it should be such that we admit people who are most 
likely to be successful, to flourish and to benefit America, and not 
people who are going to have a hard time, who don't speak English and 
don't have skills that we need in this country today. I believe it is 
wrong to bring in more workers, particularly with low skills, who 
compete directly against Americans who are trying to get a job, pulling 
down their wages while making it harder for them to get a job. I think 
that is going beyond what the responsibility of the government is.
  It is our responsibility to follow the law as it is written, and it 
is the President's responsibility under his oath and duties as the 
Chief Executive and the chief law enforcement officer in America to see 
that our laws are enforced. If he wants to come back again with some 
other changes in the law, let him bring it up. Let's talk about it. But 
he does not get to do that on his own. I am pleased that the Supreme 
Court has stopped him at least with regard to this specific program, 
the so-called DAPA program.
  I appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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