Although President Obama has promised his plan of broad and far-reaching executive amnesty after the November elections, he currently continues to surreptitiously engage in lawless unilateral acts to break our immigration system and fundamentally remake America.  This raises the specter for Republicans to use the budget process during the lame duck session of Congress to rein in the lawless open borders policies, especially at a time of grave national security dangers – with threats coming from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and Ebola.

Earlier this week, we pointed out Obama’s dyslexic and dangerous policy of recruiting illegal immigrants to join the military at a time when our soldiers are being forced into retirement.  Now the Obama administration has issued two more open borders edicts that violate current law and further harm our national interests.

Yesterday, HHS announced that it would spend $9.2 million in legal aid for recent arrivals from across our southern border.  That money is being given to pro-open-borders organizations. You heard that right.  Our taxpayer dollars are being used to fund Obama’s lawless open borders agenda to the detriment of American taxpayers, middle class workers, and legal immigrants.  What’s worse is that his action is completely illegal.

The Heritage Foundation has already noted, Section 1229a(b)(4)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act explicitly bars legal services to illegal aliens that are provided at the government’s expense.  Here is the relevant section of the law:

(4) Alien’s rights in proceeding

In proceedings under this section, under regulations of the Attorney General—

(A)  the alien shall have the privilege of being represented, at no expense to the Government, by counsel of the alien’s choosing who is authorized to practice in such proceedings,

What part of “at no expense to the government” does this president not understand?

Not only did Obama ensure that new illegal immigrants who recently arrived will never be returned home, he issued another executive decree to bring in even more illegal aliens from Central America. This time he is twisting our refugee policies:

The Obama administration is initiating a program to give refugee status to some young people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in response to the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Under the program, immigrants from those countries who are lawfully in the United States will be able to request that child relatives still in those three countries be resettled in the United States as refugees. The program would establish in-country processing to screen the young people to determine if they qualify to join relatives in the U.S.

In a memorandum to the State Department Tuesday, President Barack Obama allocated 4,000 slots for refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean for next year. The number is a fraction of the number of children who have already crossed the border into the United States and are awaiting deportation proceedings. (Associated Press)

In years past, our refugee and asylum policies have been used to bring in people who were legitimately being persecuted or fleeing communism.  These people went on to become productive Americans and were not a public charge or financial burden over time.  In recent years, our refugee policy has been abused to let in tens of thousands of people from the third world, including some like the Boston Bombers, who turned out to represent security risks.

While it is unlikely that those coming from Central America will be Islamic terrorists, they are dangerously susceptible to deadly diseases and are also likely to become a public charge. Moreover, once again, Obama is thumbing his nose at the law. The Department of Justice’s Immigration Judge Benchbook section 101(a)(42) clearly states that the bedrock basis for refugee status is a credible fear of persecution based on race, religion, or nationality.  While all of these people are living in dismal conditions compared to our standard of living, this is true of most of the third world.  Latin America is actually one of the most homogenous parts of the world and there is no religious or ethnic persecution. 

The federal government has already extended the generosity of our legal (and illegal) immigration system to these countries and has let in record numbers from these countries.  This is not about persecution or generosity – it is politically motivated and it is illegal.  This is not immigration; it is pure anarchy.   

Republicans have the opportunity in the coming weeks to campaign on the rule of law, secure borders, sovereignty, and putting Americans first.  Some potential presidential hopefuls like Chris Christie might want to avoid the subject, but we cannot continue to let Obama unilaterally dismantle our borders.  Reagan’s beckoning for bold-colored leadership has never been so sorely needed.      

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