Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said on Tuesday that the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to resign for failing to enforce existing law.
“There can be no comprehensive immigration reform as long as it is the policy of the director of ICE, John Morton, to refuse to enforce existing law,” the senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in remarks 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?”
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Sessions delivered his remarks and submitted a detailed timeline of what he said were unacceptable actions by Morton to the Congressional Record as President Barack Obama unveiled his sweeping immigration reform framework in Las Vegas.
Obama’s proposal includes a way for most of the estimated 11 million people already in the U.S. illegally to become citizens, strengthening border security, cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and streamlining the legal immigration system.
GOP Reps. John Fleming of Louisiana and Lamar Smith of Texas similarly criticized Obama’s plan as a nonstarter so long as the administration fails to enforce long-standing laws.
Fleming tells Newsmax that border security and the nation’s dysfunctional visa system are two major factors behind the current illegal immigration problem that aren’t being addressed.
“We’re a nation of immigrants, but we’re also a nation of laws,” Fleming said. “If we’re not going to enforce the ones we have, all I can see us doing is repeating the mistakes of the past.”
“We’ve been down this road before with politicians promising to enforce the law in return for amnesty. And then after the amnesty, they fail to make good on the enforcement promises,” said Smith, who serves on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. “The American people should not be fooled.”
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