Speech #1130125833

I urge all my colleagues who share my concern about this illegal Executive amnesty to do the same. I strongly oppose President Obamas recent action for two reasons. The first is I think it is a horrible policy that is going to take a desperate situation of illegal immigration into this countrya situation that has truly reached crisis proportions. including over the last several months with these new waves. for instance. of illegal minorsand make that desperate situation much worse. Why do I say that? Well. it is common sense. If you take a big action that is going to reward folks who have participated in that illegal crossing. what do you think you are going to getmore of it or less of it? If you reward behavior. you are going to get more of it. if you punish or stop behavior. you will get less of it. So on policy grounds. this Executive actionthis illegal Executive amnesty for about 5 million illegal aliens in our countryis going to reward that behavior and produce more of it. As we have proved. we dont have adequate protections at the borderan adequate system of enforcement in place either at the border or just as importantly at the workplace. It is horrible policy that is going to make the situation worse. But the second concern I have is much more fundamental. and it goes to the constitutional authority of the President and the fact that this is clearly beyond his authority because he is acting contrary to statutory law. The Congress and the President have acted together in the past and laid out statutory law about immigration. This is clearly directly contrary to statutory law because the President through this Executive action is not simply saying: I am going to refuse to prosecute this case or that case or even a broad category of cases. He is going even further and saying: I am going to issue work permits to affirmatively say that these people can work legally in our country. to affirmatively say that employers can hire these people. even though that is directly contrary to all sorts of statutory law on the books now. Every President in the United States has significant powers. obviously. and Presidents have the power to fill in the details of legislation when those details are not clear and when they need to do so to properly execute the law. But that is completely different from doing something contrary to statutory law. and that is what President Obama is doing here. Several people directly involved in thisincluding the Supreme Court. including President Obama. ironicallyhave made this clear: The Supreme Court in the past has recognized that "over no conceivable subject is the power of Congress more complete" than over immigration. So the Supreme Court has said that in all subject matters of law across the board. immigration is squarely in the hands of Congress under the Constitution. As I said. even more interesting. President Obama in the past. before this illegal Executive order. has said he doesnt have this power.