WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Thursday expressed outrage that a White House spokesman openly admitted that the Obama Administration postponed taking executive action on immigration until after the November elections in an effort to avoid backlash at the polls.
In a release, Sessions’ office said that the president’s planned “executive amnesty” would provide work permits and “legal” status by administrative fiat to 5–6 million illegal immigrants.
In a White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest conceded that the Administration has purposefully postponed making their move until after the elections, but tried to downplay the decision’s significance.
“The concern is, had the president moved forward with his announcement prior to election day, you would have seen Republican candidates do more to make the immigration issue central to their campaign,” he said. “And in the event that they were successful in their campaign, the concern would be that they would cite their opposition to immigration reform as a reason for their success. That is not a storyline that the president wanted, or anybody here wanted to contribute to.”
Sessions responded with a blistering statement declaring that the “people of this country will not tolerate the decimation of their laws, borders, and wages.”
“One is left breathless by the White House’s admission that it is timing its planned nullification of America’s immigration laws for after election day in the hope that it will spare Senate Democrats from the public’s wrath,” Sessions said. “Instead of rebelling against executive amnesty, Senate Democrats have supported it every step of the way. They continue to put their loyalty to Leader Reid and the White House ahead of the interests of the struggling American workers they are supposed to represent. America’s borders are not up for debate. Activist CEOs do not get to sit in a secret meeting at the White House, flanked by amnesty activists and Democrat consultants, and decide it’s time to scrub away our national boundaries.
“We must not let this happen. We will not let this happen. The people of this country will not tolerate the decimation of their laws, borders, and wages.”
More coverage of Sessions on immigration:
> Sessions: Democrats’ executive amnesty plan should send shudders down your spine
> Sessions: Obama’s executive amnesty could lead to terrorist attack on homeland
> Sessions unloads: Obama more concerned with helping illegals than getting Americans back to work
> Sessions: Senators should block any AG nominee who doesn’t oppose Obama’s amnesty plan
> Sessions: Obama displacing US servicemembers by recruiting illegal immigrants for military
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