In an effort to throw a wrench into President Obama’s plan for executive action on immigration, a House trio introduced legislation last week that would prohibit the administration from leasing high-priced office space to house several thousand new government employees being hired to operate the immigration program.
U.S. Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), Brian Babin (R-TX) and Lou Barletta (R-PA) presented the No Office Space for Executive Amnesty Act, a bill specifically written to block Obama’s plan to lease a $7.8 million, 11-story building for implementation and management of executive actions on immigration.
“President Obama’s decision to grant amnesty through unilateral executive action makes a mockery of our laws, and it must be stopped on all levels,” Babin said. “As we await further action by the federal courts, this legislation will ensure taxpayer funds can no longer be wasted on renting expensive office space for government bureaucrats to carry out the president’s illegal executive-amnesty actions. This further protects your tax dollars while advancing our fight to stop the president’s amnesty and restore the rule of law.”
“Although federal judges have blocked President Obama’s unlawful executive amnesty for the time being, it is still important that we do all that we can to prevent its implementation,” Barletta, chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said. “The president is trying to introduce five million more competitors into an already-tight job market at a time when 20 million Americans cannot find work. The president has made clear that he intends to ignore Congress in his quest to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, and we must be equally as determined to exercise our constitutional power of the purse to stop that from happening.”
“The president severely overstepped his constitutional authority when he attempted to legislate from the Oval Office,” Ratcliffe said. “His policies and programs on immigration are not what my constituents have asked for. They sent me to Washington to stand for the Constitution, not to rubber-stamp its abuse. Not one dime of taxpayer funds should be used to fund actions that side-step the Constitution. This includes leasing buildings for the purposes of supporting his policies that would provide amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.”