Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert says President Obama is acting like a monarch in unilaterally changing immigration policy and threatening to do it again on a grander scale.
The congressman says Obama is personally responsible for the surge of illegals, including unaccompanied minors, across our southern border, and Congress should begin a process of withholding funding for any department of government that refuses to enforce the existing laws.
In a White House Rose Garden statement on Monday, Obama ripped congressional Republicans for refusing to approve comprehensive immigration reform and said they left him with no choice but to pursue reform on his own.
“I would greatly prefer Congress actually do something. I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing,” said Obama.
While the president may be frustrated, Gohmert says Obama surrendered the authority to make or change laws the minute he left the legislative branch of government.
“He didn’t run for the legislature. He left the legislature and ran for president. Legislating is not an option for him unless he wants to destroy our Constitution or create a constitutional crisis, which he is quickly moving us toward,” said Gohmert.
In the same Rose Garden statement, Obama stated he is asking Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder for recommendations on what he can do on immigration policy through executive action.
If Obama makes good on that promise, Gohmert says House members need to take swift and decisive action.
“The founders gave us the power of the purse. It’s going to take a lot of courage to stand up to the president and say we’re going to start defunding anything that you care deeply about that’s not important to the American people,” said Gohmert, who wants to start by removing funding for the attorney general’s office and rescinding salaries for anyone held in contempt of Congress.
“We need to start eliminating any money for any federal agency or department, including the White House, that is not following the law. Then you get their attention. That’s what the founders anticipated. I know our Speaker (John Boehner) says we’re only half of one-third (of the government). Well, we’re the most important half of the appropriations process. If we don’t agree to an appropriation, it doesn’t happen. It’s time we took a stronger stand in that regard,” said Gohmert.
Obama also claimed on Monday that comprehensive immigration reform was an urgent priority because the present surge of illegal immigrants is proof that our existing laws are very confusing to people yearning to live in the U.S. Gohmert says that analysis is exactly backwards.
“The current rules are confusing because the law is very clear and yet the president came out and announced, like a good monarch would, that he didn’t like the law and so he pronounced new law. ‘If you meet these requirements, then we’ll let you stay here. So I have spoken, so shall it be.’ That’s what monarchs do. So because of that, it is confusing. The law itself is not,” said Gohmert.
In addition to its alleged failure to enforce existing immigration and border security laws, Gohmert says the government is actively thwarting other laws and putting American lives at risk.
“Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, they are engaged in human trafficking. So if you get into this country, then you are transported to other parts of the country. If you have a parent who is here illegally, then Health and Human Services, which is no longer about health, and Homeland Security that is no longer about security will engage in human trafficking and help you violate the law by getting you illegally wherever you want to go,” said Gohmert.
The congressman made headlines earlier this week by telling radio host Sean Hannity that the U.S. is on the road to becoming a third world country. He elaborated further on that characterization, noting that the warehousing of kids and adults does not represent a modern society and neither does the practice of letting people with communicable diseases roam around our country. But he says there is an even greater concern that smacks of a third world regime.
“One of the things that makes a third world country a third world country is that they don’t follow the law and they don’t enforce it fairly. There’s graft. There’s corruption. Officials can be brought and they can be bribed. They will do whatever they want. We have people fleeing countries like that to come into the United States because we have been observing the rule of law for the most part. We do try to apply it fairly across the board. Then once they get into this country, then they say, ‘We want you to become like our country and quit enforcing the law,'” said Gohmert.
Gohmert’s solution to the surge across the border is to enforce existing law to the fullest extent and stop people from entering the country and them back to where they came from. He says history proves this works.
“Border Patrol men can’t afford to say it on the record because of their jobs, but what I heard from them over and over is, ‘We had a problem with Brazilians coming in when they got word we wouldn’t send them back. Once we were allowed to send a few families back, it stopped immediately,” said Gohmert.
As for the tens of thousands who have just arrived, Gohmert says basic compassion should apply in terms of feeding and providing other immediate needs, but he says they simply need to be told they can’t stay and then escorted out of the country.
“You say, ‘You’re not coming in legally. Our laws means so much. That’s why our economy is better than yours, because we apply the rule of law. We can’t let you destroy the economy by forcing us to quit following the rule of law. Therefore, we are sending you back,'” said Gohmert.
“It would require some manpower, some expense to send people back, but nearly as much as the damage to our country would be by letting people come in just willy nilly as they wish to,” he said.
Obama is also asking for Congress to approve two billion dollars in new spending to provide better temporary shelter and to set up more judges and courts to process the cases of the illegal immigrants.
Gohmert sees no need for aliens caught illegally crossing the border to get a day in court.
“No, they don’t need to be in court. What should be done is what’s called a turnaround. If you attempt to come in to get on our soil and you’re caught at the border, then you’re turned around and sent back. You don’t need a judge to hear your case. If you did not come in legally and have the proper papers, you go back. You go back to where you came from. That ought to be what we do,” said Gohmert.
In the final analysis, Gohmert says the current crisis is a result of the federal government not doing its job in protecting our borders. He says there’s no reason to work with Obama on immigration legislation as along as the president thumbs his nose at the current laws.
“Once we have a president who agrees to follow the law, shows us he will follow the law, then we can get a reform package. There’s no sense in reforming anything until the president is willing to follow the law. The courts have made clear that it is up to the federal executive branch to enforce our immigration laws,” said Gohmert.
