On Friday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) slammed President Barack Obama for enacting an executive action on Thursday to allow some illegal immigrants to serve in the military, which Sessions said would take away opportunities from Americans who want to serve.
Sessions said that Obama is “launching a new effort to recruit illegal immigrants and visa overstays for the military at a time when thousands of career military personnel are facing layoffs–meaning that the President’s recruitment program will directly displace American military personnel.”
“Military service is a high calling, and a noble career, and is most certainly not a job Americans won’t do,” Sessions said in a statement
Sessions, who has been the foremost champion of American workers in Congress during the amnesty debate, said that “in our economy, like our military, we have a shortage of jobs–not a shortage of workers.” As Military.com noted, “the class of 2014 now leaving high school will face more difficulty qualifying for the armed services than ever in the 40-year history of the all-volunteer force” because of “belt-tightening” and force reductions.
Sessions also warned that Obama’s promised executive action “by the end of the holiday season” will include work permits for illegal immigrants that will take “precious jobs directly from American workers at a time when 28.9 million Americans in their prime working years (25-54) don’t have a job.”
Sessions said that “instead of circumventing the law to eliminate our immigration controls, any President who cares about the rule of law would instead be taking lawful, constitutional executive actions to restore those laws and end the illegality.” Sessions recommended some actions such a president can take:
- Complete the border fence that Congress has previously passed into law
- Create the exit-entry system to track foreign visa-holders, which Congress has repeatedly mandated
- Cancel visas to any country that won’t take back its own citizens
- Stop the improper issuance of billions of dollars in child tax credits to illegal immigrants
- Enforce the currently un-enforced public charge rule for immigrants to the U.S., both legal and illegal
- Crack down on abuse of the H-1B guest worker program that is displacing U.S. workers
- Increase, don’t reduce, prosecutions under the proven Operation Streamline
- Instead of suing states that are trying to enforce the law, target sanctuary cities that are defying the law
- Cancel all meetings with pro-amnesty groups to plot executive amnesty, and instead meet with Chris Crane, Ken Palinkas, and Chris Cabrera (of ICE, USCIS, and Border Patrol). Instead of ordering them not to do their jobs, sit down with them ask what they need to end the lawlessness and restore integrity to our nation’s immigration system.