Sessions: Border bill should ban more executive orders

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) demanded the “essential precondition” that any bill passed to deal with the influx of immigrant children include language prohibiting President Obama from issuing more executive actions on immigration laws.

“No member — House or Senate, Democrat or Republican — should support any bill with respect to the border crisis that does not include language explicitly prohibiting the administration from taking such action,” Sessions said. “Congress must foreclose any possibility of these unlawful executive actions before congressional funding is granted.”

{mosads}Lawmakers are rushing ahead of the August recess to pass legislation to help border agencies deal with thousands of child immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The White House has asked for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to provide legal aid and temporarily house and feed the children, but Republicans are demanding that some immigration reforms be included in the package.

Sessions is concerned by news reports that Obama is considering another executive action on immigration law that would allow 5 million people with expired work visas to stay in the country if they have children that are U.S. citizens. 

Sessions said Obama’s plan would “nullify the immigration laws of the United States.” He has been an ardent critic of allowing more foreign workers into the country while so many Americans are out of work.

“We have people in our own country living in violence, fear, and poverty every single day,” Sessions said. “They have demanded an immigration policy that puts their jobs, wages and communities first.”