AMNESTY WATCH WED NOV 26 TODAY: GIVE THANKS! You arent alone. The Obama amnesty work permits can be stopped, says government agency. Look here at many voices from diverse elite circles decrying Obama action. Grassroots opposition has put our allies in a good position for short-term Congress victory in December THANKSGIVING #1 -- Non-partisan congressional authority confirms Congress can de-fund Obama amnesty, including stopping the use of fees This is fantastic news and mirrors what NumbersUSAs Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks has been saying all along. It means that all of your phoning and faxing the last month has been pushing for something that really IS a solution. Many open-borders enthusiasts in media and beyond have chuckled for a week that threats of de-funding wont work because the Obama Work Permits would be funded by fees rather than by congressional appropriations. Thus, Ive had journalists tell me somewhat gleefully, agencies can spend the fee money in whatever way the President asks them to spend it. Not so fast. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) sought an opinion from the authority that Members of Congress have at their disposal: the CRS (Congressional Research Service). He has released what CRS found. Most importantly: The money received as fees by federal agencies must still be appropriated by Congress to that agency in order to be available for obligation or expenditure by the agency. The funds available to the agency through fee collections would be subject to the same potential restrictions imposed by Congress on the use of its appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds. Read more here: https://numbersusa/news/congressional-analysis-congress-can-de-fund-obamas-executive-amnesty This really only makes sense. If Congress didnt have the ability to control how the executive branch spends fee money, a President could set up one agency after another without any input from Congress as long as the agencies were funded entirely by fees. THANKSGIVING #2 -- Your hundreds of thousands of individual grassroots actions have pushed House Republicans to the brink of making de-funding possible I know that youve been bombarded with warnings that House GOP leaders are going to abandon voters and workers and give Pres. Obama a pass (weve sent some of those messages, too). But be reassured that the momentum has shifted in the direction of carving out part of the spending bills to give Congress a chance early next year to de-fund the Obama amnesty. Well give you a lot more on this when Congress returns to D.C. next week. We have a lot of work still to do these next two weeks. But dont be so discouraged that you start to give up. Do your part today to keep the momentum going by ma king sure you have taken all the actions available on your Action Board: NumbersUSA/actionbuffet THANKSGIVING #3 -- We are less than a month away from burying the S. 744 Gang of Eight amnesty forever. An incredible testimony to the power of persistent, systematic, coordinated grassroots action. Yes, the Presidents behavior on immigration the last week has been as deplorable and discoura ging as it is petulant and vindictive. But the Obama Amnesty contains only a fraction of the damaging elements that are contained in S. 744. Despite early-2013 media predictions being almost unanimous that S. 744 would become law, it will die as soon as this Congress adjourns. Why? More than any other reason, because all of you led the way and modeled the power of a mobilized grassroots expressing opinions one at a time to one Member of Congress at a time through phone, fax, email, town halls and office visits. All of America -- and all future Americans -- can be thankful to you. THANKSGIVING #4 -- Tough condemnations of the Obama Amnesty by diverse elites provide much-needed assistance to the grassroots I have always said that grassroots action alone rarely can be victorious. The general citizenry almost always needs at least a significant minority of elite voices and institutions. We at NumbersUSA offer the following quotations as a kind of Thanksgiving buffet of treats and delights from politicians, media and academe. Sure, I know that these are words. I know that some people saying these words have given us good reason to doubt their sincerity. But it is far easier to persuade an elite to act in the interest of the public if that elite has very publicly indicated he/she would do so -- and if folks like all of us continue to loudly remind them of their strong words. DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. And ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY in the Wall Street Journal Pres. Obamas justification of his actions endorses a view of presidential power that has never been advanced by even the boldest presidential advocates. If this view holds, future presidents can unilaterally gut tax, environmental, labor or securities laws by enforcing only those portions with which they agree. This is a dangerous precedent that cannot be allowed to stand. Mr. Rivkin is a constitutional litigator and served in the Justice Department and White House Counsels Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Ms. Foley is a constitutional law professor at the Florida International University College of Law. m.wsj/articles/david-rivkin-and-elizabeth-price-foley-obamas-immigration-enablers-1416872973?mobile=y Temple University law professor Peter J. Spiro The magnitude and the formality of it is arguably unprecedented. Its fair to say that we have never seen anything quite like this before in terms of the scale. Shannen W. Coffin, a former Justice Department lawyer This action certainly looks a lot more like, Im changing the rules of the game, rather than Im just choosing not to exercise my discretion, and that runs counter to Congresss power to decide what the law is. Its highly questionable as a constitutional matter. Texas Governor-Elect Greg Abbott I am prepared to immediately challenge President Obama in court, securing our states sovereignty and guaranteeing the rule of law as it was intended under the Constitution. A LOT OF QUOTES HAVE COME FROM PEOPLE WHO IN THE PAST (AND OFTEN THE PRESENT) WANT AN AMNESTY BUT NOT THE WAY OBAMA IS DOING IT. IN THE SHORT-TERM, THEY ARE HELPFUL Sen. Angus King (a Maine Independent who caucuses with the Democrats) in the Washington Post I have grave constitutional concerns about separation of powers that even though the president might be doing something that I think is good policy, it establishes a precedent that esse ntially moves power from the legislature to the presidency that I think is not in the long-term best interest of the country. Lawrence ODonnell on MSNBCs The Last Word asking a Democratic congressman who had no answer to the question No one at the White House has been able to give me the legal justification for . . . . (the part where) the President will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents. Can you tell me and has the White House told you what is the legal justification for the President to create a new category of beneficiaries for work documents? How can that be done without legislation? Chris Matthews on MSNBCs Hardball The cheap and exploitable jobs are the chief magnet for illegal immigration. This executive order will upgrade that magnet. This is the central fact, an executive order by the President will not help fix the failed U.S. immigration law. The only way to do that is by law; law that is passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) in a press release The President shouldnt make such significant policy changes on his own. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in Reuters I have to be honest, how this is coming about makes me u ncomfortable. I think it probably makes most Missourians uncomfortable. In-coming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Washington Post I think the president will come to regret the chapter history writes if he does move forward. Because the plan hes presenting is more than just, as the president himself has acknowledged, an overreach -- its also unfair. Speaker John Boehner in the Washington Post Instead of working together to fix our broken immigration system, the president says hes acting on his own. Thats just not how our democracy works. The president has said before that hes not king and hes not an emperor, but hes sure acting like one. And hes doing it a time when the American people want nothing more than for us to work together. Gov. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) in Politico Should the president decide to exercise executive authority and overturn American immigration law, (Republicans should use the budget process to) prevent the implementation of policies that are inconsistent with the priorities that were embraced by the vast majority of the country. Senator-Elect Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) While I have long supported overhauling our broken immigration system, I am incredibly disappointed that the President has chosen to circumvent Congr ess and take action he himself has repeatedly claimed is outside the legal authority of his office. A FEW OF THE MANY QUOTES FROM OPPONENTS OF AMNESTY Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) in The Hill publication They introduced legislation to prohibit funding to implement President Obamas executive action on immigration, The Separation of Powers Act. This legislation will allow Congress to exercise its check on an out-of-control White House that treats the Constitution as a mere suggestion, not the law of the land, Poe said. My colleagues and I will explore our options to stop this overreach and restore the proper Constitutional balance to our government -- this legislation is an important start, Black said. Senator-Elect David P erdue (R-Ga.) As part of the new Senate majority, I will fight to hold the Obama Administration accountable when they overstep their authority and work through Congress to fix our broken immigration system with step-by-step reforms, not sweeping actions that dont solve the underlying problem. Senator-Elect Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) Immigration was a central issue in my campaign. I won by 17 points. The American people have spoken loudly about the kind of immigration reform they want, and it is not what the president is proposing. HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Let us be grateful for our constitutional system that has allowed us to have this much influence thus far. Let us be grateful f or each other. We are powerless by ourselves or in small disconnected or disorganized groups. We gain not only power but confidence in knowing that throngs of fellow citizens across the country are magnifying our voice every time we speak up. Let us be grateful for those national leaders who have truly pledged to fight for the America worker and taxpayer and without whom we would have little chance of success. Let us not be discouraged that we face threats to much that we hold dear. Doesnt every generation face some threat of this type? We are fortunate to live in a land where we have so many tools and so many avenues to respond to these threats. Be not discouraged but instead be encouraged in the midst of all these reasons for gratitude. HAPPY THANKSGIVING, ROY BECK, NUMBERSUSA PRESIDENT THU, NOV 27th
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 09:06:28 +0000