Illegal alien captured trying to sneak across the border pictured here showing proudly his Obama tattoo…
On February 24, 2015 Senator John Barrasso asked for permission to address a matter pertaining to the national security of the United States, specifically the need for funding of the Department of Homeland Security:
“Madam President, as I come to the floor today, the Senate is continuing to try to debate a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. We have made no progress on this bill for weeks, as Democrats continue to filibuster our efforts to actually even get on the bill, to have a meaningful discussion on the subject. The bill has already passed the House of Representatives.
The way the Senate is supposed to work is that if Democrats don’t like something about the bill, then they should offer amendments and change it. That is how the process has worked in the past. It is how the process is supposed to work today.
It is the process as it worked about a month ago when we debated the Keystone XL Pipeline. We had more than 40 different amendments debated on the floor, voted on the floor. That is more than double the number of amendments the Senate Democrats allowed all last year in debate on the floor of the Senate.
We could be debating those and voting on those amendments right now. My question is, why aren’t we doing that? It is because Senate Democrats are filibustering to keep us from even considering this bill. This is a very important piece of legislation. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is scheduled to expire on Friday. Everyone in this Chamber, both sides of the aisle, should agree that funding the Department of Homeland Security is something we need to do. Why are Democrats being obstructive in the way that they are?
The answer is this is a disagreement not about funding Homeland Security, it is about our Nation’s immigration policy and the President’s Executive amnesty, an action which I believe is illegal. Congress is the appropriate place to make laws about America’s immigration policy. It is not something the President gets to decide on his own. It shouldn’t be controversial either. At least eight Senate Democrats have said they disagreed with the President’s Executive actions or they have doubts about them.
Senator Donnelly said back in November “the President shouldn’t make such significant policy changes on his own.”
On the same day Senator Heitkamp said the President’s actions “could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the Senate before it has even started.”
Even the President himself has on 22 separate occasions said he lacked the authority to rewrite immigration law–22 times. He said in March of 2011:
There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system, that for me to simply, through Executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.
He did it anyway. He knew it wasn’t appropriate, but that didn’t stop him. Now a Federal judge has made it crystal clear the President does not have the authority to act on his own as he did. The President cannot make a new law just because he doesn’t like the laws passed by Congress. This was a U.S. district court ruling in a lawsuit that 26 States brought against President Obama.
Here is how USA TODAY described it in a front-page headline last Wednesday. They said, “Obama Immigration Plan Blocked.”
Rollcall ran its own headline the same day that said, “Immigration Ruling Casts Shadow on Obama’s Legacy.” What the court did was to stop the Secretary of Homeland Security from implementing any and all aspects or phases of the President’s plan. The Federal court said, “It is Congress, and Congress alone, who has power under the Constitution to legislate in the field of immigration.” Let me repeat that. “It is Congress, and Congress alone, who has power under the Constitution to legislate in the field of immigration.”
The judge added that the President’s plan “clearly represents a substantive change in immigration policy.” This is not just a minor change. It is not the same thing that other Presidents have done before. The judge completely rejected the Obama administration’s claim that it was simply exercising “prosecutorial discretion.”
I know the President did not understand the last election. I am starting to think Democrats in this body do not understand why they lost. It is strange that Democrats want to continue trying to protect the President who does not have the strong support of the American people. It was a losing strategy in November and it will be a losing strategy now.
Democrats in this body are continuing to prevent the Senate from doing anything, again, in an effort–they are doing it to protect President Obama. Now that a Federal judge has agreed the President exceeded his own authority, it is time for Democrats to stop defending the President and the White House. Senate Democrats have already voiced their concerns about what the President did and how he did it. It is time for those same Democrats to convince the rest of their Members that enough is enough.
It is time for them to stop pretending this is about immigration, when it is now clear this is about the President’s overreach. It is time for Democrats to end their filibuster and to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
I yield the floor.”
Source: Congressional Record
See video: Barrasso: Time for Senate Democrats to Stop Blocking DHS Funding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-8bg23HZ7Q