Senate Fails the "Sessions" Test

Cross posted from CommonSenseAmerica

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama harshly admonished members of the Senate yesterday telling them that the amendment he offered to fund the fence at our southern border, as agreed to in the Senate, should not be rejected.

He asked the Senate what kind of message it will send to the American people after watching the Senate recently vote to build a fence on the border only now to see them vote against funding the construction of that same fence.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have acted like an obnoxious schoolchild trying to get noticed, with my hand waving furiously, to answer his question.

What type of message will it send, Mr. Sessions? The same message our elected officials have been sending us for decades; they are NOT concerned with what the American people want or need.

From The Washington Times :

Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.

"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."

Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.

But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and vehicle barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving the federal expenditures needed to build it.

Virtually all Democrats were joined by the chamber's lone independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session's amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats -- Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware -- supported funding the fence.

All told, 34 senators -- including most of the Republican leadership -- voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed funding it…

Senator Jeff Sessions didn't stop there. He decided that he was going to further test our elected officials.

…To prove his point, Mr. Sessions offered another amendment, which appropriated another $85.7 million to enable Homeland Security to hire 800 more full-time investigators to probe immigration-law violations. The vote against that amendment was 66-34.

I think this last section of the article further exposes what our lovely Senate truly intends to do about securing our border and illegal immigration.

…Kris Kobach, who was a counsel to the attorney general under John Ashcroft, told a House subcommittee last week that one of the most unusual aspects of the Senate bill is a provision -- slipped into the more-than-800-page bill moments before the final vote -- that would require the United States to consult with the Mexican government before constructing the fencing.

"I know of no other provision in U.S. law where the federal government requires state and local governments -- every state and local government on the border -- to consult with state and local governments of a foreign power before the federal government can act," he said.

"Now, from my experience as a Justice Department official, when we had consultation requirements with the State Department, just getting two agencies in the executive branch to consult took months or years," said Mr. Kobach, now a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. "If you add this, three levels of government and a foreign power, your delay" will never end.

Yes, promise the American people whatever they want to hear but then hope we don't notice that you have no intention of ever keeping those promises because you will neither fund them or you will be sure to include enough provisions in subsequent bills to assure your promises can never be fulfilled.

God bless Senator Jeff Sessions. He has been one of the few that has spoken for the American people and has exposed the true agenda of our elected officials.

More on illegal immigration and border security from CAII members:

Red Hot Cuppa Politics posts: Tarrant County League Of Women Voter Advocates Free Healthcare For Illegals

The Uncooperative Blogger posts: Colo. OKs toughest U.S. immigration bills

Morning Coffee posts: Harry Ringside Reid put efforts to end Catch and Release on the shelf

DeMediacratic Nation posts: Green card scam - A Question of Connotation

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**

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