Four of the tea party’s favorite elected members of Congress held a press conference urging their party to go all out to fight President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, which hurts Americans, particularly African-Americans.
“Just about every Republican candidate in the country campaigned saying ‘if you elect us we will stop President Obama’s amnesty,'” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), standing next to Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said. “What I’m here urging my fellow Republicans to do is very very simple: Do what you said you were going to do.”
Cruz said that when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) becomes Senate majority leader in January at the beginning of the 114th Congress, he should block key presidential nominees outside of certain national security positions.
“The incoming Senate Majority Leader should announce that if President Obama proceeds with this illegal amnesty, not a single presidential nominee — executive or judicial — will be confirmed, other than vital national security positions,” Cruz said. “That is an explicit power given to the United States Senate, by the Constitution, in order to reign in an out of control executive.”
The junior senator from Texas argued that Obama’s move to reform the nation’s immigration system was actually hurting wide swaths of Americans.
“Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules and came here legally,” Cruz said. “Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the 92 Americans who aren’t working here right now. Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the African American community that’s facing historic unemployment.”
Cruz has actually previously argued that Republicans should use executive and judicial nominations as leverage to try and make Obama reverse course on the executive action. Cruz has also predicted that Obama would cause a shutdown over the executive action.
