Cecilia Muñoz, who runs immigration policy for the White House—and who is a former executive for the open borders group La Raza—also likened amnesty to a civil right. And only days ago she absurdly argued that the surge in illegal immigration bears no relation to the President’s suspension of immigration laws or campaign for amnesty. As Breitbart News reported: "Muñoz pushed back against the idea that the influx could be due to discussions of [amnesty]… 'Neither the bill which passed the Senate last year, nor the deferred action program for childhood arrivals would benefit these kids,' she continued. 'They both have cutoff dates. You had to have been in the country by a particular date in order to qualify for either of those things.’”
Perhaps an earlier report from the New York Times provides the best rebuttal to Ms. Munoz:
With detention facilities, asylum offices and immigration courts overwhelmed, enough migrants have been released temporarily in the United States that back home in Central America people have heard that those who make it to American soil have a good chance of staying. "Word has gotten out that we’re giving people permission and walking them out the door," said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent who is vice president of the local of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents’ union. "So they’re coming across in droves."
For all practical purposes, the Administration’s policy is that anyone in the world, of any age, is free to come and stay in the interior of the United States, to illegally work and receive taxpayer benefits, so long as they are not caught, tried, and convicted of a serious crime. And even then, thousands of criminal aliens are released each and every year.
Unfortunately, the President remains committed to escalating—rather than ending—the lawlessness. It therefore falls on the shoulders of Republicans alone to make the case for new leadership that will restore America’s borders. Republicans are the last line of defense for the American worker. They are the last bulwark for the rule of law.
Imagine, for instance, that the Administration announced it would no longer enforce any tax fraud violations in amounts under $1 million, as a matter of “prosecutorial discretion.” Would we not see a massive spike in tax fraud in amounts less than a million dollars? It would be a unilateral repeal of an entire section of the criminal code by the Executive Branch. Now further imagine the Administration expanded the policy to say that tax fraud—in any amount—will be permitted so long as the proceeds are transferred to a minor relative. After all, this minor, the Administration argues, received the money “through no fault of their own” and so it would be morally improper to apply the law in such cases—it would be a violation of their “civil rights.” Does anyone doubt this would lead to a total collapse of tax enforcement nationwide?
Of course not. Yet this administration has effectively adopted the philosophy that immigration law, on its own, cannot be enforced in the interior of the United States and that, further, foreign nationals who arrive by a certain age—and their relatives—have a “right” to become citizens of the United States.
It is time for the GOP to look the American people in the eye and say: We will end the chaos. We will stop the lawlessness. And we will restore for the American people the immigration protections that have been callously stripped away by this Administration.
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee and former Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee. He is also a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for the State of Alabama. |
