President Barack Obama’s promise of a year-end unilateral amnesty for illegal immigrants has highlighted an immigration split among GOP senators: whether to fight the president’s amnesty, or fight for a say on how the president proceeds. The most-recent signs of the long-running disagreement comes just weeks before the critical November election.
Obama’s promise was described merely as a cynical legal dodge by the GOP’s taciturn leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell.
But populist Sen. Jeff Sessions slammed Obama’s pending edict as an elitist attack on Americans’ wages and jobs.
By giving “work permits to millions of illegal immigrants… [Obama] will wipe away American workers’ lawful immigration protections [and] illegal workers will be instantly allowed to take precious jobs directly from struggling Americans in every occupation,” said Sessions’s Sept. 6 response.
Obama and the Democrats “believe our nation’s immigration policy should be decided by a handful of the world’s most elite CEOs and most powerful open borders lobbyists… The remedy now is for the American voter to send a message that will thunder through the halls of Congress,” he said.
“Though President Obama and his Senate Democrats refuse to believe so, the American citizen is still in charge of this government and this country,” Sessions declared.
Sessions’ passionate pitch, however, is opposed by many donors vital to the GOP and by many corporate lobbyists. In general, companies back Obama’s immigration-boosting policies because they want more cheap workers and more customers.
But Sessions’ populist strategy is backed by several other senators, and many polls show that swing-voters, many Hispanics, working Americans, GOP supporters, plus much of the Democratic Party’s base, lopsidedly oppose Obama’s planned amnesty.
McConnell’s response was more limited: “The president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law — he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections,” McConnell said in a Sept. 6 statement.
“He must work with Congress in a transparent, accountable way — not rewrite the laws on his own,” said McConnell, without suggesting any GOP counter-moves.
In June 2013, McConnell opposed the Obama backed amnesty and guest-worker bill, which would have doubled the annual inflow of foreign workers to almost match the four million Americans who turn 18 each year.
However, McConnell did not rally GOP opposition to the bill, which opponents say would have raised unemployment, cut wages and shifted more of the nation’s annual income to wealthy people.
Neil Munro is the White House correspondent for The Daily Caller. This piece was originally posted on Dailycaller.com.
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