Mullin, Lankford, Bridenstine React To Immigration Action

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 20, 2014

Congressman Mullin’s Statement on President Obama’s Immigration Executive Order

WASHINGTON – Congressman Markwayne Mullin (OK-02) issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s announcement that he would be using an executive order to prevent deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States.

“Tonight, the President announced an immigration plan that completely ignores the will of the American people, the Constitution, and is contrary to previous statements made by the President himself.  Only Congress has the power to write laws, and it is the President’s job to enforce them. Through his partisan, unilateral actions, he has further divided our nation and made it more difficult to address our immigration problems.

Right now, we need the President to enforce our current laws and give additional resources to border patrol agencies.  Further, he needs to allow local law enforcement and border patrol officials to do their jobs by enforcing the law instead of telling them what laws they can enforce and limiting their access to certain portions of the border.  We have to secure borders before we can enact any immigration reform.

Most of us agree our immigration system is broken. However, by issuing this executive order, President Obama is encouraging more people to enter the country illegally through our porous borders in the hopes of receiving future amnesty and taking advantage of a government that does not enforce its own laws.

I look forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle to address immigration in an appropriate way that reflects the will of the American people, respects the rule of law, and represents the values of our Constitution.”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 20, 2014

Lankford: President Obama was right the first time

Washington—Representative James Lankford (R-Okla.) expressed disappointment today after the President announced his latest effort to circumvent the constitutional legislative process and issue an Executive Action to unlawfully defer deportation of approximately five million undocumented individuals currently in the United States.

‘The President is trying to illegally legalize illegal individuals,” said Lankford. “This declaration crosses the line into legal gymnastics.”

On July 1, 2010, the President spoke about immigration and the need for legislation to resolve the many immigration issues we face as a nation. During the speech he stated:

…There are those in the immigrants’ rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are [here] illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we have better laws.  And often this argument is framed in moral terms:  Why should we punish people who are just trying to earn a living? I recognize the sense of compassion that drives this argument, but I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair.  It would suggest to those thinking about coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for such a decision.  And this could lead to a surge in more illegal immigration.  And it would also ignore the millions of people around the world who are waiting in line to come here legally. Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship.  And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable. 

“Many times over the past six years, the President has stated immigration must be resolved in law, not in Executive Action. He was right,” observed Lankford. “Now, because the political negotiations are growing more difficult, the President has punted his previous stand on the law and has invented a new Executive ability to act when Congress does not pass a bill on his time-table.

“The Constitution is clear and the courts have affirmed that the President cannot invent new policy for millions of people. We are a nation of laws. A police officer cannot invent new laws on the street; that would be chaos. The President cannot invent new law from his office; that is chaos. The Department of Homeland Security is not prepared to manage millions of people flooding their offices or the flood of people that will now rush across our border.

“It is apparent that the President is acting now because it was politically toxic to act before the election, and the new Congress will pass immigration reform that focuses on border security first. Obviously the President does not want to do the hard work of negotiating an actual reform, so he has acted in a manner that only a few years ago he called, ‘unwise and unfair.’ The President has a pen and a phone; he should use them to negotiate law, not invent ways to avoid the law.

“The Senate has passed comprehensive immigration reform, and the House has passed a significant border security bill and high-skill work visa reform. The President’s action makes reform harder to negotiate in the next Congress because it is obvious that whichever law is passed, he will only enforce the areas he chooses, instead of faithfully executing the laws of the United States.”

“The American people believe in the rule of law. Our nation does not have a problem with immigration; we have a problem with illegal immigration. Oklahomans understand that when we’re talking about immigration, we’re talking about people and families. Our strong values direct us not to flippantly make federal policies or laws that impact people’s lives, their families or their futures. The President’s Executive Action gives temporary recognition to millions of people and certain uncertainty two years from now for the same people,” concluded Lankford.

For a list of 22 times President Obama said he couldn’t ignore or create his own immigration law, please click here. 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 20, 2014

Congressman Jim Bridenstine Declares Executive Amnesty Is Unconstitutional, Unfair, Costly, and Dangerous

Tonight, President Obama announced a series of executive orders regarding immigration.  His executive amnesty is illegal, unfair, costly, and dangerous because it will spur a wave of further illegal immigration.

• It’s illegal and unconstitutional for the President to usurp legislative power clearly delegated to Congress.  The President has no statutory authority or inherent power to apply prosecutorial discretion to millions of people.
• It’s unfair to millions of legal immigrants that have played by the rules, and it’s unfair to the American workforce as labor rates will decline.
• It’s costly because most amnestied illegals will have immediate access to taxpayer funded benefits such as Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security, and Unemployment Insurance.
• It’s dangerous because amnesty encourages further illegal immigration facilitated by our unsecure border.

Last month, I visited with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and National Guard personnel manning the Rio Grande Valley sector of the southern border – the area most trafficked by cartels smuggling people, drugs, and weapons into the United States.  The border is not secure.  CBP is undermanned, underfunded, and hampered by ridiculous environmental protection laws that limit patrol and surveillance access across much of the border.

I also learned that the cartels – and the foreign governments that abet smuggling operations – are deeply sensitive to changes in U.S. immigration policy.  During the Unaccompanied Children surge crisis, House Republicans passed a bill to suspend foreign aid to Central American countries until they acted to stop the flow of illegal immigrants.  Though President Obama ignored our bill, the mere threat of congressional action prompted consular officials from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to instruct detained illegals to stay home once deported.

How should Congress respond to Obama’s illegal executive amnesty?  Congress should exercise the power of the purse to withhold funding necessary to implement the President’s amnesty.  I hope the President does not choose to shut down the government to enact an executive action that American does not want, that Congress did not vote for, and that is unconstitutional.

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