Sen. Sessions Responds to Pres. Obama’s call for amnesty during State of the Union

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), and a member of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, came out against Pres. Obama’s call for “comprehensive immigration reform” (amnesty) during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Pres. Obama called for a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal aliens and an expansion of legal immigration.Sen. Sessions has been a vocal opponent of both Pres. Obama and the Senate Gang of Eight’s priniciples for immigration reform. He has used his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to achieve more transparency within the Immigration and Customs Enforcment branch of the Department of Homeland Security and has supported the efforts of ICE Union President Chris Crane who has filed suit against the federal government, and on Tuesday, sent a letter to Pres. Obama requesting a meeting to discuss immigration reform.”President Obama’s remarks on immigration are deeply troubling. The biggest obstacle we face to reform is this nation’s failure to establish lawfulness in the system. The President’s immigration plan meets the desire of businesses for low-wage foreign workers while doing nothing to protect struggling American workers. “President Obama’s plan also ignores the dire warnings of federal law enforcement officers. Just today, the president of the ICE agents’ union wrote the White House and expressed his concern that ICE officers have been kept out of White House immigration meetings, detailing their many concerns over the evisceration of federal immigration law.  In that letter, he explained: ‘Until these concerns are resolved, I fear that any enforcement mechanisms in a future immigration bill will, like the laws already on the books, not be enforced.'”For more information on the State of the Union, see Roy’s blog. And for more on the ICE Union’s letter to Pres. Obama, click here.