Jeff Sessions on Surge of Illegal Immigrant Children: Obama Has 'Nobody to Blame But Himself'

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The onslaught of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors at the southwest border is a direct result of President Barack Obama’s immigration rhetoric, and the only way to confront it will be for Obama to speak out against it, according to Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.

“This is a direct result of the President’s statements that he was not going to enforce the law with regard to people who entered the country as youngsters. It’s an open invitation for others to come. What he has done in the last months, aided by members of Congress, is to create the impression that no one is going to be deported, and especially young people who come into the country are not going to be deported. So they are focusing way too much on attempting to cope with the flood of young people coming into the country and not nearly enough on reducing the flow,” Sessions told Breitbart News.

Monday the Obama Administration announced an interagency “Unified Coordination Group” led by FEMA to deal with the “humanitarian crisis” of thousands of unaccompanied minors attempted to cross into the United States.

According to Sessions Obama has “nobody to blame but himself” for the crisis, adding that he has warned “repeatedly” that Obama’s statements would be a magnet for this type of immigration.

“At this point in time, it is imperative that the President of the United States himself make crystal clear that the border is not open,” Sessions added Monday, “that anybody who comes to this country illegally, young or old, will be deported, will be apprehended and deported; and that he tell the whole world to not come. He needs to send a message that this country intends to have a lawful system of immigration and we don’t have a lawless, open border. Until he is willing to do this nothing much is going to change.”

Sessions continued on to note that the estimated cost of $2.3 billion in a single year to deal with the surge is unaffordable.

“We don’t have the money to do this. And it’s a catastrophe, and the President has got to personally lead on it. Immediately is too slow,” he said.