King and Sessions Agree: Indefensible DACA Conflicts with Existing Federal Immigration Law

Statement

Congressman Steve King releases the following video of his exchange with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing this morning. During questioning, Congressman King asked the Attorney General about the constitutionality of the unlawful Obama-era "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" (DACA) program. In his reply, Attorney General Sessions agreed not only with King's position that Obama's decision to enact this unconstitutional Amnesty program for illegal aliens was "not proper," but also with King's position that DACA conflicts with existing immigration law and would require Congressional, not Executive Branch, action to renew. King and Sessions also discussed the nation's need for more Immigration Law Judges to handle the current backlog of cases, and King's belief that the Department of Justice should revisit former F.B.I Director Comey's erroneous use of "intent" (a standard that does not appear in the applicable criminal statute) to exonerate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information.

On DACA's Lack of Constitutional Authority:

Congressman King: "As I recall you made a public statement some time back about the Constitutionality of the policy that was implemented by President Obama. Would you care to reiterate that position today?

Attorney General Sessions: "Well, the president, President Obama, indicated multiple times that he felt that DACA, he didn't have the power to do DACA in the way it was done. And eventually they must have changed their mind and executed this policy to make persons in the country unlawfully and give them lawful status, work permits, and even participation in Social Security. I felt for some time that was not proper. A federal district court in Texas so held. And the fifth circuit court of appeals also so held that it was unlawful. What happened was we worked on the research but the department of homeland security withdrew the policy because it was not defensible, in my view."

(Emphasis added.)

On DACA's conflict with the existing Rule of Law:

Congressman King: "There's a lot of public dialogue about what kind of legislation might be passed in conjunction with the DACA policy. That's up in the air right now. I'm noticing the Democrats are saying "we're going to have everything we want on DACA or we'll shut the government down.' It causes me to think about what should happen if congress reaches an impasse and there is no passage of any legislation to extend the DACA policy. If the president should decide on or before that march 5 date - - that he wants to extend the policy, what would your position be?"

Attorney General Sessions: "That's hypothetical; I don't think I should speculate on that. I do think Congress will have to give it thought. We have a law now. It's in place. Congress passed it. And Congress would have to change it."

Source