Obama's Lawless Amnesty Turns Three

Statement

It has been three years since President Obama first unveiled his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, more commonly referred to as DACA. DACA has provided deportation deferrals and work permits to illegal aliens, which has served as a magnet to encourage more illegal aliens to cross our Southern border. The President's decision to expand amnesty for over five million unlawful entrants is a gross abuse of power.

More than 90 million Americans are out of work, so it is unfair to Tennessee families that this President wants to force hard-working taxpayers to compete for jobs with illegal aliens to whom he is unilaterally granting work permits. In addition, what is the President's response to those immigrants who have been lawfully waiting in line for years to become citizens? Is that consistent with the societal "fairness" of which he so often speaks?

During the first two years of his term, the President had a Democrat super-majority in Congress and did nothing to address this immigration crisis that he now claims is such an emergency that he must go it alone. He kicked the immigration reform can down the road for years and failed to work with Congress on serious solutions to address the problems with our immigration system.

His solution to immigration is to take out his pen and write an executive memo that encourages thousands of illegal aliens to flood our borders through unconstitutional executive actions. DACA is the primary example. President Obama's actions have effectively nullified the immigration laws of this country and made America an "open borders society" with no rules governing entrance except those announced through royal decree.

Time and time again I've said that President Obama's attempt to re-write our nation's immigration laws from the oval office has turned every town into a border town and every state into a border state. We must prioritize legal immigration and enforce the rule of law.

Here's what we've been doing about it:

Earlier this year, as part of the Department of Homeland Security Funding bill, the House approved my proposal to freeze the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The House first approved my legislation, which would also prevent President Obama from taking future executive actions to expand amnesty for illegal aliens, on August 1, 2014.

Last year I voted in opposition to the House Continuing Resolution, which failed to take the steps necessary to defund President Obama's executive actions to expand amnesty for illegal aliens.

I had the opportunity to visit an unaccompanied alien children (UAC) facility at Fort Sill and also traveled to the southern border where I was briefed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. These visits confirmed what we have known all along -- DACA is the magnet drawing Central American children here.His failure to enforce deportation laws has given children false hope that they can cross the border and remain in America permanently. Many of the Central American children who have come here were abused or injured along the way. Some even had friends who died on the trip. I am disgusted by the fact that these children have become pawns in the President's political game. We must find a way to humanely re-patriate these children back to their country of origin and secure our border.

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