Politics

RNC, GOP Senators’ Reactions To Obama Amnesty Highlight Different Strategies

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

President Barack Obama’s promise of a year-end unilateral amnesty for illegal immigrants has highlighted an immigration split among GOP senators: whether to fight the president’s amnesty, or fight for a say on how the president proceeds. The most-recent signs of the long-running disagreement comes just weeks before the critical November election.

Obama’s promise was described merely as a cynical legal dodge by the GOP’s taciturn leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

But populist Sen. Jeff Sessions slammed Obama’s pending edict as an elitist attack on Americans’ wages and jobs.

By giving “work permits to millions of illegal immigrants… [Obama] will wipe away American workers’ lawful immigration protections [and] illegal workers will be instantly allowed to take precious jobs directly from struggling Americans in every occupation,” said Sessions’s Sept. 6 response.

Obama and the Democrats “believe our nation’s immigration policy should be decided by a handful of the world’s most elite CEOs and most powerful open borders lobbyists… The remedy now is for the American voter to send a message that will thunder through the halls of Congress,” he said.

“Though President Obama and his Senate Democrats refuse to believe so, the American citizen is still in charge of this government and this country,” Sessions declared.

Sessions’ passionate pitch, however, is opposed by many donors vital to the GOP and by many corporate lobbyists. In general, companies back Obama’s immigration-boosting policies because they want more cheap workers and more customers.

But Sessions’ populist strategy is backed by several other senators, and many polls show that swing-votersmany Hispanicsworking AmericansGOP supporters, plus much of the Democratic Party’s base, lopsidedly oppose Obama’s planned amnesty.

McConnell’s response was more limited: “The president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law — he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections,” McConnell said in a Sept. 6 statement.

“He must work with Congress in a transparent, accountable way — not rewrite the laws on his own,” said McConnell, without suggesting any GOP counter-moves.

In June 2013, McConnell opposed the Obama backed amnesty and guest-worker bill, which would have doubled the annual inflow of foreign workers to almost match the four million Americans who turn 18 each year.

However, McConnell did not rally GOP opposition to the bill, which opponents say would have raised unemployment, cut wages and shifted more of the nation’s annual income to wealthy people.

The Republican National Committee — which relies heavily on corporate donors — also released a tepid statement.

“It’s sad, but not surprising, that President Obama continues to play politics with such a serious and important issue… Immigration reform will continue to be the president’s biggest failure as long as he keeps playing politics and refuses to work with Republicans,” read a statement from Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ruth Guerra.

Other GOP senators issued similar low-temperature “rule of law” responses.

A unilateral amnesty “goes against the constitution and the rule of law,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee if the GOP wins a Senate majority in November. “He should work with Congress on legislation that makes a difference and can pass both the House and the Senate.”

“He’ll probably go ahead and do it after the election is held, and someday the courts likely will say that he acted unconstitutionally,” Grassley said, without suggesting any response.

Several Senate GOP leaders did not post public responses. These leaders included Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and South Dakota’s Sen. John Thune.

However, the  campaign committee for Sen. Jerry Moran, the chairman for the committee charged with helping the GOP win Senate elections, issued a relatively tough statement: “By conspiring to subvert the legal process through executive amnesty for millions, President Obama and Democrats in the Senate just gave voters every reason to vote against them this fall,” said the press statement.

“Threats of unpopular executive fiats sixty days out from an election were already toxic for Democratic senators – the promise that they’ll occur after Election Day only will serve to anger their constituents more and elect a new Senate who will stand up to the president,” read the statement.

“The only thing this announcement changes is that Senators [facing elections this year] like Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu will have President Obama’s executive amnesty threats hanging over their campaigns like a storm cloud for the next sixty-days,” it said.

A committee spokesman has endorsed a populist wages-and-jobs criticism of the Democrats’ immigration records.

Several would-be GOP senators, including Scott Brown in New Hampshire, Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas and Terry Lynn Land in Michigan, are using the emotional immigration issue to compete against their better-funded, better-known, media-favored and skillfully managed Democratic rivals.

Sessions’ pro-American pitch also has been joined by other populist senators, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who have called for more public pressure on Obama and the Democrats.

“It is more important than ever for the Senate to debate and vote on this issue before [the election because] the American people have a right to know where their representatives stand,” Sessions said.

On Aug. 1, almost the entire GOP House caucus passed two bills that would limit Obama’s ability to offer work-permits to illegal immigrants. The bill was pushed through by House conservatives, after they blocked a leadership-drafted bill that would have relaxed border enforcement rules.

The Senate majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, has the power to schedule a vote on the House-passed bill.

Sessions, Lee, Sen. Rand Paul and several other GOP senators have called on Reid and other Democratic senators to schedule and pass the House bill through the Senate before the midterm election.

But they’ve got little chance of persuading Reid to schedule a vote, so they’re using the issue to spur GOP support in the midterm election.

“There must be no confusion on this point: not one Senate Democrat has supported the House bill to stop this executive action and demanded that Leader Reid bring it to a vote,” Sessions said.

“Every Senate Democrat is therefore the president’s direct partner in this lawless scheme.”

Follow Neil on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel