Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton.
“Last year, I joined with my colleagues at a press conference with the top representatives of the nation’s rank-and-file immigration law enforcement officers,” Sessions said on Tuesday. “The president with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office and the Border Patrol. Those associations or unions elected to serve as the voice of their fellow officers gave a chilling report at that press conference right over in the Senate building with several other senators. They gave a chilling report about the administration’s systemic effort to… dismantle the enforcement of our immigration laws. At the center of this misconduct is John Morton, the director of ICE.”
“The evidence that I am about to share with you leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that Mr. Morton can no longer effectively serve at this post, and perhaps more importantly there can be no comprehensive immigration reform as long as he’s the person in charge with enforcing it,” Sessions said on the Senate floor. “What purpose is served to pass new laws if the ones we have are ignored by the officials charged with enforcing them?”
The evidence Sessions is talking about is a timeline of the Obama administration’s immigration law dismantlement, quotes from the top ICE agents’ union official Chris Crane, and a detailed description of a lawsuit ICE agents have filed against the administration that he submitted into the congressional record as he took the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Sessions came out with fellow Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah against the so-called “Group of Eight” immigration reform proposal on Monday.