US Senator Barbara Boxer pleads for Executive Amnesty
Even though the Democrats lost the majority on November 4th, President Obama
and his diminishing political majority insist on pushing amnesty piecemeal,
regardless of the Constitution or the will of the American constituents,
particularly those who rejected amnesty supporters in the House and US Senate
for reelection.
In addition to the letter below, I will include remarks during my heated
exchange with Senator Boxer’s Washington DC staff. Their complete indifference to
the rule of the law, particularly the Constitution, is quite disturbing.
In light of the refusal by the Republican House of Representatives to
pass the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill, I urge you to take
executive action to fulfill the critical goals of that comprehensive bill,
which passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 68-32 on June 27, 2013.
Senator Boxer must have failed high school civics. Legislation requires
support from both chambers of Congress before coming to the President’s desk.
She neglected that a number of Republicans were willing to work together with
the President and the US Senate for immigration proposals, but after executive
actions from the President, the House conference believed that they could not
trust the President to enforce the new bill, which required stiff border
control before enacting amnesty. The President has ignored his own laws, has
enacted signing statements and other extralegal policies to further limited policy
aims. Why should anyone in Washington extend him discretion on immigration
policy?
Furthermore, Boxer forgets that her party had majority control of Congress
from 2008 until Election 2010, particularly a supermajority in the US
Senate. I spoke with an immigration policy official in Boxer’s DC office, and
he had no explanation why she and her colleagues did nothing on immigration
then.
In doing so, you will be following in the tradition of past presidents
of both parties.
This talking point about Republican Presidential executive action is
misleading as well as irrelevant. Presidents, regardless of their political
party, should not resort to executive action apart from Congressional approval
on anything. No principled conservative, or American citizen in general, would
settle for such reasoning. Regarding President Reagan’s passage of
Simpson-Mizzoli
in 1986, the fact that he signed legislation, then followed through with
executive action justifies the fact that the
President does not get to act apart from Congress. The Constitution was
designed with this check-and-balance chiefly in mind.
President Obama himself acknowledged in his own book The Audacity of
Hope, as well as numerous times as Senator,
as Presidential
candidate, and President,
that he did not have the authority to unilaterally rewrite immigration laws.
I urge you to ignore the angry voices of the do-nothing crowd in
Congress who have repeatedly blocked progress on immigration reform. If they
really cared about fixing our broken immigration system, they would not be
threatening to shut down the government or file wasteful lawsuits.
The simple answer: If the Democrats in Washington really cared about fixing
the broken immigration system, they would have done so between 2009-2011
instead of bulldozing an unpopular stimulus package at the outset (with no
Republican votes), then trying to pass Cap and Trade, which died in the US Senate,
and then forcing on the American people Obamacare, which barely survived
through immoral kick-backs and a rush reconciliation process. There’s also
Dodd-Frank, which has wreaked havoc on the banking industry, benefitting Too
Big to Fail firms at the expense of smaller banks and credit unions.
For the record, “those angry” voices pressed against Republicans
and Democrats in 2006-2007 when Republicans held Congressional majorities as
well as the Presidency. Angry voices from Americans across the country do not
support amnesty, nor the criminal enterprises which have emerged from illegal
immigration: drug wars, identity theft, welfare fraud, human trafficking, and
property damage.
Reforming our immigration system is one of the best things we could do for
our economy.
Boxer then lists a number of suspect statistics. More importantly, these
facts beg the question. No one disputes that increased legal immigration is
good for an economy. But it has to be legal. Furthermore, this country’s
citizenry deserves a secure border with proper health and safety screenings on
all incoming immigrants. Criminals and infected persons needed not apply.
[I]f we do not act, the dire situation of undocumented immigrants will
only get worse – families will continue to be torn apart and, as people
continue to live in the shadows, our economy will suffer.
Whoever claimed that families would be torn apart? President Obama’s
unlawful executive action in 2012 made a bad problem worse. In 2014, a record
sixty thousand illegal immigrant minors swarmed the US borders, seeking
asylum, amnesty, and citizenship. This surge is a direct result of President
Obama’s arrogant arrogation of power at the expense of legal measures. Once
again, Democrats had the opportunity with a sympathetic President to do something
about these families. Even liberal Democrat
Luis Gutierrez acknowledged this failure to his constituents.
The American people, including the people of my state, support bold and
compassionate action on immigration reform.
Boxer should know better: No Amnesty
Boxer cannot count on my support, including the heated displeasure which I
shared with her office staff. Polling indicates that
only 20% of November 2014 voters supported Obama’s purported executive
action. Americans overwhelmingly support
lowering immigration, too. As for California, the only people welcoming
this amnesty are the
liberal, Democratic politicians as well immigration attorneys, bureaucrats,
and amnesty advocates who have seen their numbers (and popularity) diminish statewide.
Senator Boxer’s flawed logic and cheap emotional ploys to rally executive
amnesty should have all Americans on the alert to push back against a ruthless,
lawless executive and reject his planned illegal maneuvers on immigration.