Attorney General nominee, Loretta Lynch, was questioned on her stance on the president's executive amnesty during her Senate confirmation hearing yesterday. While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lynch said that she believes that the president's executive actions to grant amnesty and work permits to illegal aliens were legal and that the right to work is shared by everyone "regardless of status".
During the hearing, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) asked Ms. Lynch "Do you believe the executive action announced by President Obama on November 20th is legal and Constitutional?"
"As I've read the opinion," Ms. Lynch replied, "I do believe it, Senator."
Sen. Sessions continued his questioning, asking "Who has more right to a job in this country: a lawful immigrant who is here, a green card holder, or a citizen, or a person who enter the country unlawfully?"
Ms. Lynch replied:
Senator, I believe the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah.) questioned Ms. Lynch about the limits of prosecutorial discretion. During the exchange, Ms. Lynch undercut the legal justification President Obama gave for his executive amnesty.
“I want to speak with you briefly going back to prosecutorial discretion,” Sen. Lee started out his line of questioning. “As a former prosecutor, I’m sure you’d agree with me that there are limits to prosecutorial discretion in the sense at least that it’s intended to be an exception to the rule and not intended to swallow the rule itself. Would you agree with me that far?”
“Certainly, sir,” Ms. Lynch replied. “I believe that in every instance, every prosecutor has to make the best determination of the problems presented in their own area, in my case in my district in my priorities and within those priorities exercise discretion.”
Sen. Lee continued:
Right, so prosecutors inevitably have limited resources so it’s understandable why they would choose—when they have to prioritize—why they would put more resources for example into punishing bank robberies than they would into punishing pick-pocketers. And perhaps they might put more resources into going after pick-pocketers than they do going after people who exceed the speed limit. But at some point there are limits to this. And that doesn’t mean that it would be okay, that it would be a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion to issue permits for people to speed, right?
"Certainly, sir," Ms. Lynch agreed.
I think that if a prosecutor were to come to the view that they had to prioritize one crime over another, you would always still want to retain the ability—even if it was an area that was not an immediate priority—if for example it became one. Because if a particular neighborhood was being victimized, or again to use your issue of speeding, there were deaths resulting from that. You would want to have the ability to, if you could, take resources and focus on that issue. It might not be the first priority but you would want to have the ability to go back and deal with that issue.
After the hearing concluded Sen. Sessions released a statement indicating that he would not vote to confirm Ms. Lynch, citing his promise "At the onset of this nomination process, I said that no Senator should vote to confirm anyone for this position—the top law enforcement job in America—who supported the President’s unlawful actions."
Unfortunately, when asked today whether she found the President’s actions to be ‘legal and constitutional,’ Ms. Lynch said that she did. I therefore am unable to support her nomination.
My concerns are furthered by Ms. Lynch’s unambiguous declaration that ‘the right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they would be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace.’
