Sessions: Election was rejection of Obama’s immigration policy

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said Tuesday’s midterm election results were a repudiation of President Obama’s immigration policies.

“Republicans campaigned for the House and Senate against the Obama-Senate immigration bill and on the pledge to block President Obama’s unlawful executive amnesty,” Sessions said early Wednesday morning. “The immediate emergency facing our new majority will be fighting the president’s disastrous planned actions, and we will have not only a constitutional mandate but also a popular mandate to do so.”

{mosads}The Obama administration has announced that after the midterm elections the president will issue an executive order allowing nearly 5 million immigrants to stay in the United States on worker visas. Many of the immigrants have U.S. children.

Obama has said he has to act unilaterally because House Republicans have refused to take up a bipartisan Senate-passed immigration reform bill that increases worker visas, provides a pathway to citizenship and strengthens border security.

Sessions said because voters overwhelmingly handed control of the Senate to Republicans in the midterm elections, it proved the public doesn’t support Democrats on immigration reform.

Sessions has criticized the legislation, saying it harms U.S. workers dealing with a bad economy and high unemployment. But Democrats say it is necessary to deal with a growing problem.

“The last six years of the Obama-Reid majority have been a government of the elites for the elites,” Sessions said. “Our new GOP senators will lead the way in returning government to the loyal citizens who sent us here.”