Hatch Calls for Defunding Immigration Executive Action on Senate Floor
Washington, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, spoke on the Senate Floor today in support of the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, H.R. 240, calling for the President to work with Congress instead of conducting unilateral executive actions on immigration.
Senator Hatch has long been an advocate for bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform through a legislative solution. A few select quotes from his speech:
On the President’s Executive Action:
With his latest move in the field of immigration, President Obama seeks not only to prevent enforcement proceedings against millions of people unlawfully present in this country, but also to license their unlawful presence with affirmative work permits. In doing so, he not only ignores the duly enacted laws of the land, but also seeks to unilaterally replace them with his own contradicting policies.
On the House bill defunding the President’s Executive Action:
Faced with this brazen lawlessness, the House of Representatives passed a bill that both funds our critical Homeland Security priorities and fulfills our duty to respond to the President’s lawless executive actions. This is a careful line to walk, and our colleagues deserve praise for their admirable work. Their bill represents a responsible governing approach by funding our critical Homeland Security needs while preventing President Obama’s constitutional abuse.
When faced with such a sensible approach, I have frankly been shocked and dismayed by the opposition that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have expressed to this bill. On the floor today, many of my colleagues have indicated that they will oppose letting us vote on Homeland Security funding—and even on amendments to the bill—unless we allow President Obama’s executive action to come into effect.
The full speech, as prepared for delivery:
Mme. President, I rise today to discuss a matter of utmost importance: the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, H.R. 240.
Mme. President, we live in a world of extraordinary threats.
Around the world, terrorists continue to devise ways to harm Americans and our interests. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we see a resurgent al-Qaeda, which continues to plot attacks from its increasingly ungoverned safe-havens. Throughout the broader Middle East, we see al-Qaeda’s affiliate groups—from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to al-Shabbab—posing a sophisticated new threat. In Iraq and Syria, we see the self-proclaimed Islamic State controlling vast swaths of territory, shocking the world with its brutality, and announcing its deadly-serious intent to kill Americans. And within Western societies, we see the potential for radicalization at home, the danger of which has been made manifest in the attacks on Ottawa, Sydney, and Paris. Inside the United States, the Department of Homeland Security serves as our critical line of defense against many of these threats at critical points—from our borders to our airports to our coasts and ports.
In the realm of cyberspace, criminals, terrorists, and other nations’ governments present sophisticated threats on a variety of fronts. Defending against these many serious threats requires efforts that range from securing critical infrastructure to guarding against the sort of espionage and blackmail that Sony recently experienced. These are enormously difficult tasks, especially in an ever-changing high-tech operating environment. As the agency charged with protecting civilian networks and coordinating on cyber-defense issues with the private sector, the Department of Homeland Security stands at the crossroads of our nation’s defense against this next generation of threats.
And when the dangers we face are natural rather than manmade, the Department plays no less of a critical role. From hurricanes and tornados to volcanoes and forest fires, the Department’s component agencies—such as FEMA and the Coast Guard—play a critical role in the preservation of lives and property.
The House-passed bill provides the Department with nearly $40 billion dollars in funding, a level consistent with the Budget Control Act’s spending limits. That money will not only fund the critical programs I have mentioned so far, but will also provide critical improvements on a wide range of fronts, including for:
More Border Patrol agents;
New ICE detention facilities;
Increased funding for E-Verify;
More effective security screening at our airports;
Improved Secret Service protection;
Increased support for cyber-defense;
And important disaster relief.
These provisions all enjoy broad bipartisan support, and I commend my colleagues on the Appropriations Committees for their hard work on this package. But this work has been complicated by a troubling development: by some of my colleagues—almost all Democrats—actively seeking to block consideration of this vitally important funding.
Why? Only because they seek to protect a President of their own party who has acted lawlessly and overstepped proper constitutional bounds. Instead of following the examples of great senators of the past, who stood up to presidents of their own party on behalf of the Constitution and the rule of law, today we have witnessed far too many senators instead shamefully toe the party line.
Mme. President, our nation’s Founders knew, in the sage words of Montesquieu, that “in all tyrannical governments . . . the right both of making and of enforcing the laws is vested in one and the same man, . . . and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.” For this reason, when drafting the Constitution, the Framers divided power—between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and between the federal government and the states.
Despite these constitutional foundations, President Obama has decided that he “won’t take no for an answer” when Congress refuses to go along with his agenda. In direct opposition to our centuries-old system of legislation and to the binding authority of the Constitution, the President has audaciously declared that “when Congress won’t act, I will.”
And he has followed up these threats with a variety of unilateral executive actions, many of which are flatly inconsistent with the law and the Constitution.
Over the past weeks and months, I have come to the Senate floor to speak out about a series of specific instances that exemplify the brazen lawlessness of this administration. This pervasive and illegitimate overreach has come in many different forms.
With his latest move in the field of immigration, President Obama seeks not only to prevent enforcement proceedings against millions of people unlawfully present in this country, but also to license their unlawful presence with affirmative work permits. In doing so, he not only ignores the duly enacted laws of the land, but also seeks to unilaterally replace them with his own contradicting policies.
The President and his allies in this chamber want nothing more than to turn this into a debate about immigration policy. But that is not what this debate is about. Immigration is a complex and divisive issue, and Americans hold a wide variety of views on the matter that don’t always divide neatly on partisan lines. Many conservatives—myself included—share some of the same policy goals as President Obama.
Instead, this is a debate about loyalty. As senators, where do our loyalties lie? Do we owe our loyalties first to the Constitution, to the protection of the American people, and to the goal of lawful and lasting immigration reform? Or do we owe our loyalty out of reflexive partisanship to a President bent on dangerous unilateralism?
Mme. President, President Obama’s executive action is a direct affront to our system of republican self-government. The Constitution vests legislative authority with Congress, not the President alone. Instead, the President is charged with the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. This is not a suggestion or an invitation for the President to enforce the law—it is an obligation for him to do so.
The President and his executive branch exercise prosecutorial discretion—the discretion to choose not to prosecute certain cases. But that power stems from considerations of fairness and equity in particular cases. Instead of requiring individualized determinations in specific cases, the President’s latest action sweeps up millions of people based on only a few broad, widely shared criteria.
An administration of course cannot prosecute when there are not sufficient resources to do so. But the Obama administration has never explained how these executive actions would save money. In fact, the administration’s own policy advisors have acknowledged that a work permitting program will be expensive and will actually take away resources from law enforcement.
And while no one disagrees that capturing and removing violent criminals should be our highest immigration priority, President Obama has gone much further and made current immigration law essentially dead letter for millions of illegal immigrants.
Despite the administration’s claim to the contrary, President Obama’s action is not comparable to the executive actions taken by President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. Even the Washington Post’s editorial board found that claim by the White House to be “indefensible.” Presidents Reagan and Bush simply implemented the enforcement priorities established in laws that Congress actually passed.
By contrast, President Obama has sought to change the law before Congress has acted, so he cannot rely on Congress’s authority to enforce the policy he prefers. Indeed, President Obama has acted directly in the face of congressional opposition, and we should call his Executive Order what it is: an attempt to bypass the constitutionally ordained legislative process and rewrite the law unilaterally.
Perhaps the most persuasive case against this disturbing unilateralism was laid out by President Obama himself. On at least 22 different occasions since he took office, the President acknowledged that he lacked the legal authority to carry out these actions. As he himself said, by broadening immigration enforcement carve-outs, “then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that’s not an option. . . . . What I’ve said is there is a path to get this done, and that’s through Congress.”
Faced with this brazen lawlessness, the House of Representatives passed a bill that both funds our critical Homeland Security priorities and fulfills our duty to respond to the President’s lawless executive actions. This is a careful line to walk, and our colleagues deserve praise for their admirable work. Their bill represents a responsible governing approach by funding our critical Homeland Security needs while preventing President Obama’s constitutional abuse.
When faced with such a sensible approach, I have frankly been shocked and dismayed by the opposition that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have expressed to this bill. On the floor today, many of my colleagues have indicated that they will oppose letting us vote on Homeland Security funding—and even on amendments to the bill—unless we allow President Obama’s executive action to come into effect.
Mme. President, senators of both political parties have often stood up to executive encroachment—not for partisan gain or political grandstanding, but in defense of Congress as a coordinate and coequal branch of government with its own essential authorities and responsibilities.
Implicit in the constitutional design of separating the federal government’s powers is the idea that each branch would have the incentive and authority to resist encroachments from the other branches, ensuring that unfettered power is not concentrated in any one set of hands.
The Founders recognized this as indispensable to preserving the individual liberty of all citizens. For as Madison counseled in Federalist 51: “[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.”
Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia embodied this institutional ideal as much as anyone with whom I have served. Although he helped lead this body for more than a half century and left us less than five short years ago, I was surprised and dismayed to learn recently that nearly half of current members never served alongside him.
Senator Byrd fiercely defended this body’s prerogatives and independence against the encroachments of the executive branch. And he neither censored his criticisms nor weakened his defenses based on the President’s political party. Even in his twilight years, when President Obama took office with extraordinarily high approval ratings, Senator Byrd was willing to hold the new president’s feet to the fire to defend the Senate’s right to give advice and consent to nominees.
He publicly chastised the new White House for its excessive reliance on czars, observing that unconfirmed policy chieftains “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”
Mme. President, how far we have fallen since the days of Senator Byrd.
Indeed, this brinksmanship by my colleagues in the minority represents the height of irresponsibility:
They risk our Homeland Security funding at a time when our terrorist enemies have repeatedly demonstrated a renewed capability to threaten the homeland;
They risk our very system of constitutional government by sacrificing our power to make the laws and the President’s duty to enforce them;
And they risk many of the immigration reform goals that are shared across party lines.
Mme. President, I am committed to making real progress toward implementing lasting immigration reform. I supported the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill last year. Even though the bill was far from perfect, I voted for it because I believe in working together to make much-needed progress on this vitally important issue.
As I have long argued, the way to get real immigration reform back on track is not for the President and his allies to insist on his my-way-or-the-highway approach. Responsible legislating—not unilateralism—is the right way forward on immigration. The President’s executive action risked the opportunity for meaningful bipartisan progress and undermined the Constitution in the process. And now, his allies in this chamber are apparently willing to risk the security of our nation at a time of extreme danger just to close partisan ranks to provide political cover to the President.
Mme. President, if my colleagues in both parties are serious about protecting our Constitution’s separation of powers and the liberty it ensures, if they are committed to protecting Americans from the sorts of terrorist attacks that we have lately witnessed with alarming frequency, and if they are committed to working together to achieve lasting immigration reform the right way, I urge them to reconsider their vote earlier today and to agree to—at the very least—debate this critically important bill.
Thank you, Mme. President
