Senators Sessions, Cruz, Lee, and Grassley Sign Letter in Opposition to S.744
On Tuesday, four Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Chuck Grassley, sent a letter to their Senate colleagues urging them to oppose S.744, the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill. They say that the Gang of Eight's bill repeats the mistakes of the 1986 amnesty and instead the country needs legislation that will secure the borders, enforce the laws on the books, and improve the legal immigration system.
"During the Senate Judiciary Committee's consideration of S.744, common-sense amendments offering real solutions were rejected. The bill's proponents repeatedly referenced an unalterable 'deal' that had been struck beforehand. As a result, the core provisions of the bill remain the same. If passed, S.744 will leave our borders unsecure and our immigration system deeply dysfunctional," the Senators wrote.
The Senators identified 9 key flaws within the bill, S.744:
- provides immediate legalization without securing the border
- rewards criminal aliens, absconders, and deportees and undermines the law
- contains extremely dangerous national security loopholes
- facilitates fraud within our immigration system
- creates no real penalties for illegal immigrants and rewards them with entitlements
- delays for years the implementation of E-Verify
- does not fix our legal immigration system
- advanced through a process predicated on a deal struck before markup
- rewards those who have broken our laws with a path to citizenship.
"We need immigration reform, but the American people deserve better than a 1,000-page bill that makes our immigration system more complex and less accountable without truly ensuring border security."