Jeff Sessions: Obama's Amnesty Push a 'Defining Moment' for House GOP

In a Thursday statement in response to President Barack Obama’s push for amnesty for America’s at least 11 million illegal aliens, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that now is a time for House Republicans to show their unity for measures that result in good economic policies and show that America is a nation of laws.

“The President said he has not heard any good reason to oppose the Senate bill,” Sessions said.

Clearly, he has not listened to the ICE and USCIS officers warning that the bill would permanently undermine enforcement. Here are three more reasons: the Senate bill will lower wages, increase unemployment, and reduce per-capita GNP. All of these statements are confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office. Under current law, we will provide approximately 10 million grants of permanent residency (green cards) over the next decade. Under the Senate bill, that number will triple to more than 30 million. Further, the Senate bill would double the number of guest workers at a time when a record 90 million Americans are outside the work force. We need to get Americans off of unemployment, off of welfare, and back into the labor force–but the ‘reforms’ proposed by the Senate would put even more Americans out of work.

Sessions added that House Republicans must decide if they represent their constituents or the special interest community demanding immigration reform.

“Many of the same CEOs demanding that Congress increase guest workers are laying off thousands of American workers,” Sessions said. “This is a defining moment for the House Republicans. They must decide who they represent: certain activist CEOs lobbying Congress, or the national interest and the millions of Americans struggling to get by in this low job, low wage economy.”

Obama tried to argue during his speech that the economy would benefit from immigration reform. “So here’s what we also know–that the bill would grow the economy and shrink our deficits,” Obama said. “Independent economists have shown that if the Senate bill became law, over the next two decades our economy would grow by $1.4 trillion more than it would if we don’t pass the law. It would reduce our deficits by nearly a trillion dollars.”