Claiming a “cycle of amnesty” as justification for opposing all immigration reform ever proposed in Congress during his tenure, including the Dream Act, nominee Jeff Sessions responded to Senator Dick Durbin that by electing Trump as President, “the people have spoken.”
Sessions argued in his confirmation hearing on January 10, 2017, that we should “fix this system” by passing immigration reform in Congress – reform that he opposed consistently while serving as a Senator. He refused to acknowledge the importance of protecting the status of those protected currently by DACA, President Obama’s executive order, and gave no guarantees about the fate of these individuals once Trump assumes the Presidency or during any extended period while reform legislation would be pending.
Sessions’ alarming refusal to acknowledge either his past or currently objectionable attitudes and actions as a Senator and a state official is made only more dismal by the Republican apologists on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who are attempting to paint Sessions’ history as irrelevant or nothing more than one reflecting permissibly different views on policy.
If (when) he is confirmed as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions will have an exclusive level of authority over the course of immigration law and policy, as well as its impact on those subject to the immigration laws. This power will manifest in 2 principal ways:
- in hiring and removing Immigration Judges and Board Members on the Board of Immigration Appeals
- in certifying and deciding immigration decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals