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Congressman Brian Babin - The Orange Leader

The United States is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of laws. And our nation’s elected leaders have a sworn duty to abide by those laws.

On twenty-two different occasions, President Obama told the American people that he lacked the legal authority to bypass Congress and grant amnesty through Executive Order. However, in November he reversed course and issued an Executive Order to grant amnesty to millions of individuals living in the United States illegally.

As the U.S. Constitution explicitly states, all changes to our laws must be done legislatively through the U.S. Congress. Laws are not to be unilaterally “rewritten” by the President, nor should the courts change them. The President’s decision to grant amnesty through executive action makes a mockery of our laws and the U.S. Constitution.

In February, U.S. Federal Judge Andrew Hanen temporarily halted the President’s amnesty plans. But the Administration has already filed an appeal and is vowing to fight the court’s ruling. While the court’s decision is an important first step, more must be done to restore the rule of law and block executive amnesty.

As a past mayor and local school board member, I know firsthand how the Administration’s amnesty plan is taxing the budgets of our local governments – schools, social services, hospitals, jails, and law enforcement.

Executive amnesty also undermines our national security by perpetuating open borders – making Americans less safe. I recently toured the Southwest border with law enforcement and met with those living along the border. I saw the severity of the situation firsthand. Simply put, our border is not secure and it is putting our security at risk. Sadly, the current Administration’s amnesty plan and refusal to first secure our borders will only make things worse.

There are millions of American citizens who are unemployed or under employed. We have others on the lower rungs of the economic ladder that want to climb higher, to earn more money, and to support their families with a higher wage. If the President’s amnesty plan is allowed to go into effect, the plight of these millions of hardworking Americans, including many recent legal immigrants, and the families they support will be further harmed.

To make the United States stronger and put American citizens first, we must stop the President’s unilateral amnesty plan and return to the rule of law.

That’s why I have fought so hard to reverse these misguided executive actions. One of the first bills I cosponsored was H.R. 191, the Repeal Executive Amnesty Act, which would fully repeal the President’s Executive Orders. We attached these provisions to the Department of Homeland Security Funding bill.

Unfortunately, the President and Senate Democrats rejected these efforts and refused to negotiate over any bill that included provisions that upheld the rule of law. In the end, House and Senate leaders passed, over my objections, a DHS funding bill that was stripped of our provisions that would have blocked the Administration’s executive amnesty plans. I joined my conservative colleagues in voting against the bill – but our opposition came up short of the votes needed to block it.

Despite the outcome, I remain fully committed to fighting to reestablish the rule of law not just on immigration policy but also across the board. The balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches of government must be restored. The survival of our Constitutional Republic depends on this balance of power.