Alabama native and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that President Obama should walk back his executive amnesty plan and realize that the American people delivered a strong message at the polls that they do not approve of the direction he has taken the country.
“We can’t have a circumstance in which we are going after a problem as meddlesome and potentially divisive as immigration by executive action only, this has to go through the people’s representatives,” Rice told Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends. “That’s our system, that’s the Congress.”
Obama held a press conference on Wednesday announcing that he planned to push forward with his immigration plan, in spite of the repudiation his Party was delivered at the ballot box.
“Before the end of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system,” he said. “I’ll be reaching out to… Republican, as well as Democratic leaders to find out how it is that they want to proceed… But what I’m not going to do is just wait.”
Rice, who is now a professor at Stanford University, said that it would be wise for the president to take note of what happened on election day, and use it as an opportunity to make a course correction.
“I hope that what he plans to do is to take the message that the American people don’t like the course that we’re on and there has to be change,” she said. “He’s going to have to work with Republicans, not just to do the things that the president wants to do, but to do things in a bipartisan fashion that need to be done for the American people.”
Rice’s criticism comes on the heels of a similar warning from fellow Alabamian Jeff Sessions, who said that his Republican Senate colleagues are unified in pushing back against what the view as an illegal use of executive powers.
“(On Election Day), the American people rebelled against the President’s executive amnesty and rallied behind GOP candidates who promised to put the needs of the American people first,” Sessions said. “A Republican Congress will defend itself and our citizens from these lawless actions. Surrendering to illegality is not an option. Democrats will have to choose sides: protect the President’s agenda, or protect your constituents.”
RELATED: Sessions: GOP majority will fight Obama’s amnesty plan, ‘surrendering is not an option’
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
