WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Mike Lee said the Senate should begin debate on the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that recently passed the House of Representatives. He said the debate would give senators the opportunity to weigh in on President Obama’s executive action.
“I am ready – indeed, I am eager – to begin this debate,” said Sen. Lee. “Not just because we have only twenty-five days before the current budget authority for DHS expires. But also because this debate will finally allow the American people to see where their elected representatives in the Senate stand on President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration.”
Polls have shown that the American people oppose not only the result of the President’s action that would give work permits to millions of illegal aliens, but they also oppose the way Obama ignored the Constitution and went around Congress to change immigration law.
“Even those who agree with the president on the underlying policy disagree with him on the process, “ Lee argued. “According to one poll, when asked if the president should ‘sidestep Congress and act on his own using executive orders,’ only 22% of the public said that he should. In other words, the American people know what our president seems to have forgotten: that in a constitutional republic the ends don’t justify the means.”
Senate Republicans are set to vote on beginning debate on the DHS funding bill tomorrow, though several Senate Democrats have vowed to block debate.
“Some have said that we shouldn’t be debating the president’s executive action on immigration right now. They say it has nothing to do with funding the operations of the Department of Homeland Security. To this I have a simple reply: ‘if not now, then when?’”
“The truth is that now is the perfect time – because it’s the only time – for us to have a meaningful debate on the president’s executive action on immigration,” Lee said.
Senator Lee’s full remarks (As prepared for delivery) can be found here
