Sen. Jeff Sessions Responds to Politico Report about WH Meetings with Corporate Lobbyists to Plan Executive Immigration Actions

A statement from Senator Jeff Sessions:

We have now arrived at a crisis point in American politics. Politico reports that the White House is meeting with the world’s largest corporations to discuss how executive actions on immigration could benefit them financially. The Administration has solicited ‘a list of asks for the tech sector’ and ‘provisions for low-skilled workers for industries, like construction’ – including green cards and work authorizations – in order to ‘get them on board’ with the President’s planned executive amnesty. One lobbyist crowed that ‘nothing was off the table.’ A tech industry lobbyist said that if they get they want from the President, ‘we will support him 100 percent.’

The same group of CEOs who helped write the Senate’s Gang of Eight immigration bill in secret is now scheming with the White House to extract by executive fiat what was denied to them by the American people and Congress.

Even while they demand more foreign workers, these companies are laying off current employees in droves. Cisco, which Politico reports met with White House aides to advocate for more foreign workers, just last week announced its intent to lay off 6,000 employees. Last month, Microsoft declared it would lay off 18,000 workers. Overall, mass layoffs in the tech industry are up 68% from the prior year. As for the construction industry, there are seven unemployed workers for every one job opening. According to a recent study released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, construction workers hit by the recession have seen their wages fall by 23 percent. The increases in foreign workers demanded by corporate lobbyists would be in addition to the Administration’s plan to implement amnesty by executive fiat, providing work permits to 5–6 million illegal immigrants and visa overstays who will be able to take any job in any industry, public or private.

This Administration is actively working against the interests of the American worker. And Senate Democrats, instead of defending Congress and their constituents, are handing their vote over to Leader Reid and President Obama. Not one single Senate Democrat has publicly stood up to their Democrat leaders and demanded a vote on the House bill to block this executive amnesty. As a result, they are as complicit as if they sat in the room with these executives themselves.

We have communities throughout America that are barely scraping by. Tens of millions of Americans are on welfare, unemployment, and public assistance. Yet the White House and their Senate Majority seem more concerned about the economic demands of large corporations, or the citizens of other countries, than about getting our own citizens back to work into stable jobs that can support a family and uplift a community.