Since Jeff Sessions was announced as president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, many have begun looking to the Alabama Republican for a glimpse of the sweeping changes that may come beginning in 2017.
As the likely soon-to-be leader of the nation’s top law enforcement agency, Sessions will have a platform to act on several pressing issues that he has long worked to draw attention toward. From immigration to terrorism, we now look to items that the he has addressed throughout his career and while on the campaign trail for Donald Trump.
Here are three key actions to watch for upon the completion of Jeff Sessions expected confirmation as Attorney General:
A dramatically shifted focus at the Justice Department
Expect Sessions to lead an effort that will more effectively identify and seek to remove those with ties to terrorism. The key could lie in a thorough probe of the United States’ immigration system.
For those who follow Sessions, this will not come as a surprise. Under President Barack Obama, the Alabama Senator has blasted of a lack of urgency shown toward the need to end threats of terrorism within the United States.
In a 2015 letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Secretary of State John Kerry, Sessions urged each department to initiate a coordinated review of immigration records that could link to evidence of terroristic attempts. Though the Obama Administration failed to yield in such information, it’s apparent that Sessions’ focus on national security will likely result in more thorough data that could expose links between a broken immigration system and threats of terrorism.
A prosecution of sanctuary cities
In 2010, the Obama Administration announced that so-called “sanctuary cities” would not face scrutiny under the law. At the time, they claimed that such self-declared cities were not as bad as states that interfere with the enforcement of the law. It’s a claim that was not well-received by Senator Sessions.
The Alabama Senator has attempted to hold President Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder accountable over the policy. As the Attorney General, he will have a chance to take action against cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This could happen in a couple of ways.
Sessions is expected confront cities that insist on remaining as havens for illegal immigrants. Likewise, he has called on the President to “cut off law enforcement funds to any jurisdiction that violates this responsibility to ensure the deportation of criminal aliens.” As the nation’s top law-enforcer, watch for Sessions to fight so that sanctuary cities do not receive federal dollars.
A more thorough investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails
Senator Jeff Sessions has sounded an alarm against potentially illegal activities committed by Hillary Clinton, which were revealed throughout investigations into her privately-housed emails. According to him, the former Secretary of State’s actions must be held accountable.
In August, Senator Sessions remarked during a CNN interview Hillary’s emails suggested that foreign governments and wealthy individuals believed they could gain access to the State Department by making donations to the Clinton Foundation. In his eyes, it signaled a clear abuse of power.
“The fundamental thing is you cannot be Secretary of State of the United States of America and use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation,” Sessions said at the time. “That is a fundamental violation of law and that does appear to have happened here.”
Senator Sessions has built a firm reputation on his desire to uphold the law. It could be assumed that, as the U.S. Attorney General, he will apply the same thoughtful dedication toward Hillary Clinton’s scandals.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) bounced between interviews Wednesday afternoon, fresh off of his star turn on the big stage the night before when the Republican National Convention’s theme was “Make America Safe Again.”
No subject could have been more fitting for Alabama’s junior senator, who has spent much of the last decade sounding the alarm that “open borders” could leave the United States vulnerable to attack — from both terrorists and illegal immigrants.
Many would argue he has been proven right.
In one particularly heart-wrenching example, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was murdered on a pier in San Francisco by an illegal alien who had been convicted of seven felonies but was continuously released back onto the streets.
Sessions invited her father to testify before a U.S. Senate committee last year while the body was considering a bill to crack down on “sanctuary cities.”
“We were walking arm-in-arm on Pier 14 in San Francisco enjoying a wonderful day together,” Mr. Steinle testified. “Suddenly a shot rang out, Kate fell, and looked at me and said ‘Help me, Dad.’ Those are the last words I will ever hear from my daughter.”
It is the Steinles and countless other families around the country who have been negatively impacted by U.S. immigration and border policies for whom Sessions sees himself fighting.
Who he’s fighting against is often a little more abstract. Although they sometimes have names — Obama and Clinton or Zuckerberg and Gates — they are usually referred to more broadly as simply the “Masters of the Universe.”
As a constant reminder of this, above Sessions’ desk in his Capitol Hill office hangs a drawing of He-Man and Battle Cat from the 1980s comic book series and cartoon of the same name.
“(O)ur greatest ‘Masters of the Universe,’ as I like to refer to them, have joined… (together) to share their wisdom from on high and to tell us in Congress how to do our business,” Sessions declared on the Senate floor in 2014 in the midst of a tense fight over so called comprehensive immigration reform. “Sheldon Adelson… Warren Buffett… and Bill Gates… all super billionaires, aren’t happy, apparently. They don’t have much respect for Congress, and by indirection the people who elect people to Congress… Those three billionaires have three votes. The individual who works stocking the shelves at the grocery store, the barber, the doctor, the lawyer, the cleaners operator, and the person who picks up our garbage are every bit as valuable as they are. So I know who I represent. I represent citizens of the United States of America.”
But while Sessions’ clashes with immigration advocates have become high profile affairs in recent years–and foreshadowed the Trump phenomenon–that has not always been the case. In 2007, with a Republican president pushing immigration reform along with members of his own party in both houses, Sessions made a sometimes lonely stand.
He won.
And to this day, just below the “Masters of the Universe” drawing hangs an excerpt from the remarks Sessions delivered on the Senate floor just before the vote that sent the bill going down in flames.
“No one small group of people have a right to meet in secret with special-interest groups and write an immigration bill and ram it down the throat of this Senate,” he said. “I oppose it. It is not right.”
But in spite of the legislative victories, President Obama has used–and Sessions would argue abused–his executive power to grant de facto amnesty to wide swaths of illegal immigrants. This has led many Trump supporters to fantasize about what it might look like for Sessions to transition out of his role as the Senate’s conservative elder statesman and into a Trump Cabinet post atop the Department of Homeland Security.
If the billionaire businessman makes it to the Oval Office, it very well could go from fantasy to reality, although the always humble Sessions dismisses such ideas offhand.
That does not mean, however, that he has not thought at great length about what needs to change inside the third largest Cabinet department (trailing only the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs).
“A lot of things need to be done immediately,” Sessions told Yellowhammer at the Republican National Convention. “Sadly, the Department is one of the largest in the federal government, but they have the lowest morale of all the major agencies, and have for several years.”
The head of the border patrol agents union has said that current DHS leadership is “punishing law enforcement officers who are just trying to uphold U.S. law,” and is “willing to take away their retirement, their job, their ability to support their families in favor of someone who is here illegally and violating our laws…either taking a disciplinary action [or] threat[ening] disciplinary action.”
The vice president of the National Border Patrol Council testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that, “(Border Patrol) agents who repeatedly report groups (of illegal aliens) larger than 20 face retribution. Management will either take them out of the field and assign them to processing detainees at the station or assign them to a fixed position in low volume areas as punishment. Needless to say agents got the message and now stay below this 20 person threshold no matter the actual size of the group.”
As a result, in addition to the victims mentioned above, Sessions has also become a champion of immigration and customs agents.
“The agents in that organization sued their supervisors and the Secretary of Homeland Security basically saying, ‘You’re ordering us to violate our oath and violate the law,'” Sessions explained. “I’ve never heard of that before — suing your boss for not letting you do your job! That’s the level of disfunction.
“So the first thing that needs to happen is that those officers need to be rallied, respected and empowered,” he continued. “Let’s put them to work. They’re ready. Let’s build a wall and the barriers we need, empower the officers, back them up with tough prosecutors, and deport the people who are caught here illegally.”
Sessions believes that such an approach would completely revolutionize Homeland Security and drastically change the way the U.S. is viewed by would-be illegal entrants.
“We would immediately send a message to the world that the border is no longer open,” he concluded. “I guarantee you we would see a major reduction in attempts to enter the country illegally, because right now many people are just coming because they believe–often rightly–that they’ll get away with it.”
Six months from today a new president will be sworn into office, and he or she will presumably bring an entirely new Cabinet with them. Whether Sessions ends up being offered such a post remains to be seen. But you can bet the “Masters of the Universe” will be holding their breath as the process unfolds.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) on Thursday sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of State, and Attorney General demanding the immigration history of the San Bernardino terrorists.
Wednesday morning, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and wounded 21 more at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino before being killed by police.
Farook is believed to have been radicalized and was in touch with other Islamists known to have been involved in terrorism. Farook also recently traveled to Pakistan and visited Mecca in 2013 on the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to do at least once in their lifetimes. Malik is a native of Pakistan who came to the U.S. in 2014 on a “fiancée visa.” She later became a permanent resident.
Sessions and Cruz are now pressing the Obama administration to release the details of the killers’ immigration history.
Their letter notes that Congress is days away from consideration of an omnibus year-end funding bill that would set the U.S. on an “autopilot path” to approve green cards, asylee, and refugee status to approximately 170,000 migrants from Muslim countries during the next year. Sessions’ office also asserts that the administration is concealing the immigration history of 72 known, recent terrorists.
In addition to the Sessions-Cruz letter, Senator Sessions, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and two congressmen also wrote to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell on Thursday, noting her agency’s failure to “submit an annual report to Congress regarding the activities of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), in violation of federal law.”
HHS has seen its budget for refugee resettlement more than double in recent years, up to $1.6 billion in its latest funding request.
The full text of the letter regarding the San Bernardino terrorists reads as follows:
Dear Attorney General Lynch, Secretary Johnson, and Secretary Kerry:
On August 12, we sent a letter requesting that you provide basic information regarding the immigration histories of 72 individuals in the United States who have been identified as having a connection to terrorism over a one-year period. You have failed to comply with the request, sent more than three-and-half months ago.
A response is not only long overdue, but urgent in light of a series of assaults, including: the heinous attacks in San Bernardino, California, the earlier attacks on the military recruiting center in Chattanooga, the Boston Bombing, and Congress’ imminent consideration of government funding legislation that would include funding for myriad immigration programs that have allowed for these events to occur.
Press reports indicate that the alleged perpetrators of yesterday’s attacks, Syed Rizwan Farook and his new wife Tashfeen Malik, wore ‘assault style clothing,’ described as ‘tactical gear,’ and authorities described their home as an ‘IED factory,’ with multiple pipe bombs and small explosives strapped to remote-controlled cars. According to these press reports, Farook is the child of immigrants who came to the United States from Pakistan, and Malik travelled to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. According to the LA times: ‘Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he had met online.’ A CNN report added the following detail: ‘Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia for several weeks in 2013 on the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime, which didn’t raise red flags, said two government officials. It was during this trip that he met Malik, a native of Pakistan who came to the United States on a ‘fiancée visa’ and later became a lawful permanent resident.’ Among Muslim nations, Pakistan is the top recipient of U.S. green cards, having received 83,000 between FY09-FY13. Further, according to CBS News, sources say that the two viewed ISIS propaganda online, and separate reports indicate that Farook was in touch with other individuals being investigated for terrorism.
Accordingly, in addition to the previously requested information from our August 12th letter, we demand that you immediately provide the same detailed information requested in that letter for Farook and Malik, which would include the immigration history of their parents and any immigration documents related to their marriage and her subsequent travel to the U.S.
In our struggle against terrorism, we are dealing with an enemy that has shown it is not only capable of bypassing U.S. screening, but of recruiting and radicalizing Muslim migrants after their entry to the United States. The recruitment of terrorists in the U.S. is not limited to adult migrants, but to their young children and to their U.S.-born children – which is why family immigration history is necessary to understand the nature of the threat.
In the first 11 months of this year, we have already identified 12 individuals brought into the country as refugees who have been subsequently implicated in terrorism. Their countries of origin range from Bosnia, to Somalia, to Uzbekistan. These events do not occur in isolation, but tend to be part of broader networks of radicalization and extremism that must be understood as we develop immigration policy.
Congress is days away from consideration of an omnibus year-end funding bill that would set the U.S. on an autopilot path to approve green cards, asylee, and refugee status to approximately 170,000 migrants from Muslim countries during the next year. In addition to that would tens of thousands of temporary visas for entry and employment, and the entire sum is added to the rest of the annual autopilot green card, asylee, refugee, and foreign worker flow. The security task involved is immense, and Congress must have the requested information if lawmakers are to act as responsible stewards of American immigration policy.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Please contact our staffs if you have any questions regarding this request.
Very truly yours,
Jeff Sessions
United States SenatorTed Cruz
United States Senator
WASHINGTON — Two top Obama administration officials sent a letter to Alabama Governor Robert Bentley on Friday insisting the federal government’s system for vetting Syrian refugees is strong and should not be a point of concern for states that are slated to receive refugees in the coming months. Alabama is expected to receive 100 Syrian refugees, who will be housed by Catholic Social Services in Mobile. In total, the Obama administration is planning to bring into the country 10,000 refugees in the next year.
In Friday’s letter, which was first posted by the Montgomery Advertiser, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said they were writing Governor Bentley “in response to ongoing discussions by governors across the country regarding our refugee resettlement program.”
Governor Bentley was among the first governors in the country to public declare his intension to reject any refugees the federal government tried to place in his state. His decision was in response to concerns over the vetting process refugees go through prior to entering the country. The White House also denied Governor Bentley’s request for classified information on refugees coming to Alabama.
“I will oppose any attempt to relocate Syrian refugees to Alabama through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” Bentley said in a statement at the time. “I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm’s way.”
Secretaries Kerry and Johnson sought to assuage those concerns in their letter Friday.
“In short, the security vetting for this population–themost vulnerable of individuals–is extraordinarily thorough and comprehensive,” the two men wrote. “It is the most robust screening process for any catergory of individuals seeking admission into the United States. The process is multi-layered and intensive, involving multiple law enforcement, national security, and intelligence agencies across the Federal Government. Additional precautions have been added with regard to Syrian refugees. We continually evaluate whether more precautions are necessary.”
The letter seems to run contrary to sworn testimony by FBI Director James Comey, who warned the Senate Judiciary Committee in October that his agency was struggling to vet incoming refugees.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) recently sent a letter to his colleagues reminding them of Mr. Comey’s comments.
“In testimony before my Subcommittee, administration officials confirmed that our government has no access to Syrian government data to properly vet refugees and has no capacity to predict whether Syrian refugees are likely to join ISIS, as have many, for example, in Minnesota’s Somali refugee community,” wrote Senator Sessions. “On October 22, 2015, FBI Director James Comey confirmed this in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly stating that the government does not have the resources and lacks the necessary information to fully vet Syrian refugees, and could not offer any assurances that there is no risk associated with admitting these individuals to the country.
“Our track record on screening is very poor,” Sen. Sessions concluded. “My Subcommittee has identified at least 26 foreign-born individuals inside the United States charged with or convicted of terrorism over approximately the last year alone.”
The full letter from Secretaries Kerry and Johnson can be read below.
Letter from the White House by webhelpmgm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax9V-IfFk3k
(Video above: Sessions questions DHS chief Jeh Johnson)
WASHINGTON — Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in a tense hearing Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee.
“Let me ask you this,” Sessions began, “just a fundamental question. How many aliens with final orders of removal are currently in the United States and have not been removed?”
Sec. Johnson responded that he didn’t have that number on hand, but he knew it to be “a large number,” and “an unacceptable number.”
Sessions then quoted statistics compiled by the Border Patrol, who estimate that 479,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the country’s southern border in fiscal year 2014.
“How many of those remain currently in the United States?” Sessions asked.
Johnson answered that “a lot of those” had been removed, but as many of them were from non-contiguous countries, so the U.S. was unable to simply ship them back across the border.
“I think you need to be able to tell us how many of those have actually not been deported, but have successfully entered the country through that illegal process,” Sessions shot back.
Johnson said he would be able to provide the number at a later time.
Sessions is undeniably the standard-bearer for conservatives on the topic of immigration. Earlier this month talk show host Rush Limbaugh praised the Senator for his stance, calling him “right on the money, well-spoken and brilliant.”
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— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizEBeesh) January 21, 2015
WASHINGTON — The Senate Immigration Subcommittee led by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has launched an investigation into whether the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland security retaliated against immigration officers for simply doing their jobs and enforcing the law.
In February of this year, President Obama said during a televised town hall meeting that there could be “consequences” for immigration enforcement officers who are not willing to ignore immigration statutes on the books in favor of the president’s executive actions.
“There may be individual officials or Border Patrol who aren’t paying attention to our new directives,” the president said. “But they’re going to be answerable to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, because he’s been very clear about what our priorities should be… If somebody is working for ICE and there is a policy and they don’t follow the policy, there are going to be consequences to it.”
Sessions’ subcommittee on Tuesday sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson criticizing the president’s remarks and asking for insight into whether he had taken any disciplinary action against any immigration officials for enforcing the law.
An excerpt from the letter reads as follows:
Not only do the President’s statements ignore the plain language of several immigration statutes that command DHS personnel to take certain actions relating to illegal aliens, the comments seem to comport with a pattern and practice of threats toward DHS personnel who seek to fulfill their duties under the law. Such statements also illustrate why morale levels among DHS personnel continue to remain near the bottom of all federal entities.
Indeed, we are aware of multiple allegations of targeting and retaliation against DHS personnel who refuse to comply with this Administration’s willful disregard of our immigration laws—such as allegations made in lawsuits filed in federal court by an award-winning ICE attorney and by a group of 10 ICE officers and agents. President of the National ICE Council Chris Crane has said that agency leadership is “punishing law enforcement officers who are just trying to uphold U.S. law,” and is “willing to take away their retirement, their job, their ability to support their families in favor of someone who is here illegally and violating our laws . . . either taking a disciplinary action [or] threat[ening] disciplinary action.” Earlier this month, Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council (Local 3307) Chris Cabrera testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that:
“[Border Patrol] agents who repeatedly report groups [of aliens] larger than 20 face retribution. Management will either take them out of the field and assign them to processing detainees at the station or assign them to a fixed position in low volume areas as punishment. Needless to say agents got the message and now stay below this 20 person threshold no matter the actual size of the group.”
Sessions’ subcommittee asked Secretary Johnson to respond by April 13, 2015 with a description of any disciplinary actions that have been taken against immigration enforcement personnel in the last six years, as well as details of “the authority upon which [DHS] will rely to penalize Department personnel for their failure to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional order.”
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— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 3, 2014
WASHINGTON — Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL3) on Tuesday peppered Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with questions as the secretary defended President Obama’s recent immigration executive order while testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee.
Obama’s executive actions seek to shield from deportation roughly 5 million illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for more than five years and have children who are citizens or posses a green card.
“The reality is that, given our limited resources, these people are not priorities for removal,” Johnson told the committee. “It’s time we acknowledge that and encourage them to be held accountable. This is simple common sense.”
Rogers asked Johnson to explain how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) plan to verify that illegal immigrants — who have had a vested interest in leaving no paper trail — have, indeed, lived in the country for the five-year timespan required to be protected from deportation.
“If they say, ‘I’ve been here seven years,’ how do you get them to prove it and how do you know the way they prove it is valid?” Rogers asked. “For example, they say, ‘I’ve been living at this address the last seven years and here’s a power bill over that period of time,’ and the power bill is in another person’s name. And they say, ‘But I rent from that person,’ and that person says, ‘Oh, yea,’ but it’s a complete fabrication. How do you prove their residency is accurate when they present themselves to you?”
Johnson conceded that it will be difficult to verify the authenticity of illegal immigrants’ residency claims, but said CIS will develop a method.
“Good question… The onus is on the applicant to come forward with something that satisfies the immigration officer — the examining officer — that they have in fact lived in this country (for the five-year period),” he replied. “I do not believe that will be as simple as, you know, ‘Take my word for it.’ There will have to be some sort of documented proof. That will be developed in the implementation process by CIS.”
Rogers said he believes there is not an accurate method to verify the length of time an illegal immigrant has lived in the United States and warned that President’s executive actions have opened the system up to increased fraud and abuse.
“This is an area that is going to be wrought with fraud,” Rogers said of the residency verification process. “All sorts of lies and exploitation are going to be driven to this point and I think it’s going to be impossible for y’all to be able to determine who, in fact, qualifies under this very broad and illegal executive order.”
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— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 3, 2014
Ebola is a health crisis. Yet the President has appointed as his new Ebola ‘czar’ a partisan loyalist whose expertise is politics—not health. One would think, faced with the prospect of an epidemic, the President would task an expert in epidemiology not an expert in political spin. Sound bites are not going to deter a single infection or save a single life. The American people can have zero confidence in Ron Klain’s competence to carry out this critical role.
At the senior levels of this government, in positions of extraordinary responsibility, the President has surrounded himself with loyalists—individuals who were selected precisely because they are not independent, will not tell the President ‘no’, and will not have any problem in feeding bogus political spin to the media.
The President’s Director of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell, was promoted after refusing to answer even those most basic financial questions from Congress during her dismal tenure at the Office of Management and Budget. Burwell, a former campaign operative, was tasked with overseeing the nation’s healthcare system despite no consequential health care experience. Secretary Jeh Johnson was chosen to head the one of the largest and most important departments of government despite being a political lawyer with no relevant background. Johnson has devoted his short tenure not to strengthening enforcement but dismantling it. Just today—as American citizens face a jobs crisis, debt crisis, border crisis, security crisis, and now a health crisis—Secretary Johnson announced actions not to restore gutted enforcement, but further steps to open our borders. DHS is now extending what amounts to a perpetual amnesty to thousands of immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua, while expediting immigration from Haiti at a time when we can’t keep track of the millions we are already admitting.
The danger at this moment is profound. We need to be barring visas and travel from Ebola-impacted regions. Additionally, should there be an outbreak in Latin America, General John Kelly of SOUTHCOM has warned that it would cause a ‘mass migration’ from Latin America of those seeking free medical treatment in the United States. ‘If it breaks out, it’s literally Katie bar the door,’ he warned. Does anyone believe that this Administration is prepared to protect this country from such a scenario?
The Administration continues to refuse to implement even the most commonsense immigration controls to protect public health and public tax dollars. Mr. Klain’s appointment, unfortunately, suggests things will get worse—not better.
Jeff Sessions represents the state of Alabama in the United States Senate
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) told Breitbart News late last week that the United States senate should oppose any nominee to replace outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder who does not “firmly reject” President Obama’s executive amnesty plan.
“The Attorney General is the top law enforcement position in government. But Mr. Holder’s DOJ has taken numerous actions that have weakened the rule of law in America, and none more dramatically than his political actions that have undermined the immigration laws of the United States,” Sessions said. “Amazingly, he declared amnesty to be a ‘civil right’ for individuals who entered or remained illegally in the country. Behind the back of the American people, the Justice Department negotiated an agreement with the ACLU to allow deported illegal immigrants to return to the U.S. He reduced prosecutions of illegal immigrants required by the proven Operation Streamline program. He is using tax dollars to provide lawyers for unlawful immigrants. And the President has stated that he is depending on the Attorney General, along with Homeland Security Secretary, to advise him on developing and implementing an executive amnesty.”
Holder announced Thursday that he planned to resign as Attorney General after a tumultuous time in office that saw him become the first AG in history to be held in contempt of congress.
#Holder legacy: Fast & Furious. Spying on reporters. Contempt of Congress. No integrity or respect for the rule of law. Good riddance.
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) September 26, 2014
Names being floated as a possible replacement for Holder include Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, among others.
Whoever the president nominates, history says he or she will have a difficult path to getting confirmed by the senate. According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, “Attorney general nominees are by far the most likely to face serious resistance” when compared to other presidential appointments that require senate confirmation.
Holder’s replacement will face the added challenges of the closely, yet fiercely divided U.S. senate and the widely held belief among conservatives — and many others across the ideological spectrum — that Holder allowed politics to infiltrate in an unprecedented way what is supposed to be the nation’s top law enforcement office.
Sessions said that he is specifically looking for a nominee who adheres to the rule of law, particularly when it comes to the nation’s borders.
“We need someone at the Department of Justice who will restore fidelity to our national laws and boundaries,” Sessions said. “No Senator should vote to confirm anyone to this position who does not firmly reject the President’s planned executive amnesty—or any other scheme to circumvent our nation’s immigration laws—and who does not pledge to serve the laws and people of the United States.”
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WASHINGTON — The Obama Administration is expected to put forward on Tuesday a request for $2 billion in funding to cover the costs of the immigration crisis on the southern border. The Administration will cast the request as an emergency appropriation that would not require Congress to find any spending or tax offsets to cover the costs. However, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) suggested today that he and other Republicans may push for spending cuts to pay for the unexpected expenditure.
“Two billion dollars, make no mistake about it, is a lot of money,” Sessions said on the Senate floor.
The Obama Administration has not yet offered any specifics about its pending request. So far this year, over 50,000 illegal immigrant children have come across the U.S. border and are now being housed in various states around the country awaiting deportation hearings.
“[W]e’ve got to take care of the children,” Sessions said. “We can’t leave them in a certain circumstance where they’re not fed or taken care of. We’ll have to find some money I guess to do that.”
But before it even gets to that point, Sessions said he believes Congress must challenge the president’s “lawlessness” on the issue of immigration.
“[House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte] has made a strong statement. He says we simply can’t provide money until we have some clarity that we’re going to be taking action in this country that will keep this from happening in the future. He’s certainly correct in that we certainly need to do that,” Sessions said.
The Obama Administration at one point signaled that they were considering housing some of the children in the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Ala., but backtracked after receiving intense pushback from Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Saks) and the public at large.
Sessions also ripped into Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson for not using more forceful language to deter illegals from venturing across the border.
“This is the top law enforcement officer with regard to immigration in America, and he could not say, ‘do not come to America unlawfully, it violates our laws, we cannot accept that, if you do so you will be deported, and if you bring children, you both are going to be deported,’” Sessions said. “Why couldn’t he say that? He couldn’t say it because they’ve had no serious policy to effectuate that law, which is current law, since he’s been in office and before. And they just don’t want to say it. It’s just stunning to me that you can’t have clarity and leadership in the top people in our government.”
(Below: a one-minute clip of Sessions’ remarks on the Senate floor)
(h/t TheBlaze)
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Yellowhammer broke the news on Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to house illegal immigrant children at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Ala. Many of them were apprehended at the U.S. border, which is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis brought on by children being sent across unaccompanied.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks) responded swiftly, penning a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson voicing his opposition to the proposal.
But prior to the Obama Administration announcing the move, a coalition of Alabama Tea Party leaders predicted it was coming and wrote a letter to Alabama Gov. Bentley asking him to intervene.
In a letter dated June 23, the Tea Party groups wrote to Bentley, in part:
We the People of Alabama respectfully request that Gov. Bentley (and our elected State Senators and Representatives) take a proactive stand by writing the Director of FEMA and the Sec. of Health and Human Services. We must tell them that Alabama cannot support lawlessness, nor do we have resources available to house illegal aliens in our communities. Governor Bentley should also demand prior notification regarding any plan involving Alabama. Our children and our interests must be protected by not allowing any of these manufactured “refugees” from being sent to Alabama. A Country without a border is chaos!
It is unclear what, if anything, the governor’s office can do to stop the Obama Administration from housing the illegal immigrants at the CDP, because it is a federally-controlled facility. Yellowhammer reached out to the governor’s office for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
The full letter from the Tea Party groups can be read below.
Dear Governor Bentley:
As always, “We Dare Defend Our Rights,” our Sovereign State and border. The situation on the US southern border is of grave concern. While everyone has sympathy for the plight of any child, we are first charged to defend Alabama’s children. Alabama has its own issues to contend with which include, unemployment, fighting the EPA, the overcrowded prison system, and the disagreement over how to educate our own children, just to mention a few. We agree with President Obama when he stated; “Our laws should respect families following the rules instead of splitting them apart.” The US should send these children back to their families as soon as possible. Warehousing them in various corners of the US will only hinder this process.
If President Obama ignores his Constitutional Duty to defend this nation against a tide of illegals, and Congress sits idle while the Attorney General seeks lawyers to defend these illegals, then the duty falls on our States. Our own Senator Sessions penned an article calling Obama’s action “lawless.” Also, the invaders streaming across our southern border are not all children. Many reports and photos show older men and gang members in the mix.
The United States has a legal immigration system, and we all agree that legal immigration has always added to the fabric of this nation. Once assimilated into the methods of the left, illegals will create a voting block that will overwhelm our system, create a new permanent underclass, and destroy middle class America.
We the People of Alabama respectfully request that Gov. Bentley (and our elected State Senators and Representatives) take a proactive stand by writing the Director of FEMA and the Sec. of Health and Human Services. We must tell them that Alabama cannot support lawlessness, nor do we have resources available to house illegal aliens in our communities. Governor Bentley should also demand prior notification regarding any plan involving Alabama.
Our children and our interests must be protected by not allowing any of these manufactured “refugees” from being sent to Alabama. A Country without a border is chaos!
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According to Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL03), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to house illegal immigrant children at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Ala. Many of them were apprehended at the border, which is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis brought on by children being sent across unaccompanied.
Rogers first learned of the plan in an email sent to his office by the Federal agency.
In response, Rogers penned a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson voicing his opposition to the proposal.
“The CDP is a world class first responder training facility; however, it was in no way built to house immigration detainees, much less children,” Rogers wrote. “CDP is over 900 miles from the Rio Grande Valley where many of these border crossings occur, and transporting illegal immigrants so far away from the border and their home countries would seem to make this crisis worse. It seems implausible that there is not a temporary facility within 900 miles of our southwestern border capable of housing these individuals without the disruption that I am concerned this transfer would cause to CDP operations. In addition, I am concerned the housing of many of these unaccompanied minor children who arrived here under the false belief they would be granted legal status — a belief challenged little if at all over the years by the Obama Administration — could put deep and challenging stresses on the local community’s health system.”
Rogers also grilled Homeland Security Secretary Johnson during a committee hearing, demanding answers on what could be done to remedy the recent surge of unaccompanied children from Central America illegally entering the country.
“Right now, we have a crisis and I don’t see the Administration doing anything about it – other than trying to house the children,” Rogers said during the hearing. “You can’t send your children up here and let them stay.”
In a letter sent to President Obama last week, Rogers urged the Administration to utilize National Guard troops to lock down the border in areas of the southwest border that are particularly susceptible to illegal crossings.
“I strongly urge you to heed the call of Congress and utilize additional National Guard units in the hardest hit areas to allow the Border Patrol to focus on enforcing current immigration laws,” Rogers wrote. “It is within your power and the law to stem the tide of illegal immigration and work with home nations in order to return these children to their families as quickly as possible.”
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Unaccompanied illegal immigrant children are flooding across the United States border at such a high rate that the U.S. government is asking officials in Central American countries to help stem the tide. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced last Thursday that his office had entered into such discussions with officials in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.
But Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the United States’ strategy should be simple: enforce the immigration laws that are currently on the books.
“I predicted this a year ago. You keep saying you’re not going to enforce the law and you particularly are not going to enforce it for young people, and it creates the perception — and it has created a perception around the world — that we are wide open, that children can just come and they will be permitted to stay,” Sessions said in an interview with Fox News. “It’s stunning, really. It’s absolutely unbelievable. And we have an internal memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security that just was leaked out that says that 95 percent of the people that have poured into our country in recent months are doing so because they believe they will be admitted and accepted, particularly young people.”
47,000 children entered the country illegally between January and May of this year. That is already double the number from 2013, and tens of thousands more are expected.
RELATED: Sessions debunks Obama’s entire immigration philosophy in a single paragraph
Fox News host Shannon Bream noted that Secretary Jeh Johnson and other Obama Administration officials have said the influx of illegal immigrant children into the country is further justification to pass so-called “comprehensive immigration reform.”
“I reject that totally,” Sessions responded bluntly. “We have laws on the books right now. It’s not legal to come here, whether you’re a youth or an adult, illegally. Give me a break. What he needs to (do is) tell the people not to come, if you come illegally, you’re going to be apprehended. You’re going to be sent back. He would not say that unequivocally. The president has to say that unequivocally. He has to stop the flow. That’s the humanitarian problem. We need to stop people from coming under the false belief that it’s going to be legal and they’re going to be able to stay. Secretary (Johnson) is failing dramatically. but really at this point it’s up to the president to tell the world to not come illegally. We have a process. You can apply. But you cannot enter illegally.”
RELATED: Sessions: A vote for amnesty is a vote to lower wages of American workers
Bream then moved on to the politics surrounding the immigration debate, asking whether Sessions believed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s support for comprehensive immigration reform was a major factor in his stunning defeat by tea party challenger David Brat.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” said Sessions. “A dominant issue in that campaign was immigration… I like and respect Congressman Cantor a lot, but I’m going to tell you, people in this country are hurting. Their jobs are threatened. Their wages are down significantly… And the idea that we’re going to have a bill to double the flow of illegal immigrants and guest workers into America to take jobs that Americans need to be having is just rejected by the people.”
When asked if Cantor’s defeat took immigration reform off the table for the foreseeable future, Sessions said that “big business and special interests want it still and are trying to make it happen, but I think this election was a major defeat for that agenda.”
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