NumbersUSA has notified every U.S. Senator that our Immigration Grade Cards will score a vote for Loretta Lynch as a vote for amnesty and against American workers.
As explained below, urging the rejection of a presidential nominee is something we have done rarely and not a decision we made lightly in this case.
We are asking our national grassroots network of citizens to contact their Senators with the message that Ms. Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, should not be confirmed as U.S. Attorney General because of her lack of acknowledgement of the importance of immigration laws to protect vulnerable American workers and of the need for them to be obeyed, particularly by government officials and agencies.
This is the message we sent into each Senate office:
NumbersUSA to score a vote for Loretta Lynch as a vote for President Obama's unlawful amnesties and against American workers
The Office of the Attorney General, the top law enforcement office in the country, is a position that should be reserved for qualified individuals with the utmost regard for the rule of law. Unfortunately, while Ms. Lynch has served honorably as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, she indicated during the confirmation process that she does not have that regard for duly enacted immigration laws. She deemed "reasonable" President Obama's unprecedented and unconstitutional amnesties. For a candidate wishing to serve as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, the only acceptable response to the President's abdication of the law and the Constitution is unequivocal rejection.
Her dismissive attitude about the seriousness of enforcing immigration laws was largely explained in her initial answer to Senate questioning about whether the priority for U.S. jobs should be that they go to unlawfully present foreign workers or to legal workers of our nation. Ms. Lynch answered that everybody should be getting U.S. jobs regardless of their legal status, despite the fact that the primary purpose of immigration laws is to protect vulnerable American workers. This attitude toward the law--particularly laws protecting American workers--is unacceptable for a candidate wishing to serve as the Attorney General of the United States.
Accordingly, NumbersUSA is forced to score a vote for the confirmation of Ms. Lynch as a vote against the Constitution, against the rule of law, and against the interests of American workers.
Full opposition to a presidential nominee is not common at NumbersUSA, although we may often express specific concerns and questions. I speak for myself in saying that Ms. Lynch in many ways appears to have been an excellent choice for the nomination. I was disappointed that she stumbled so badly on immigration issues during the confirmation process. As a practical matter, delaying confirmation of a new Attorney General would seem to keep in place the current Atty. Gen. Holder who has performed his duties abysmally when it comes to upholding any number of immigration laws passed by Congress. Nothing suggests that Ms. Lynch could be any worse in this regard. But with the President and his Administration challenging the constitutional separation of powers on one immigration matter after another, this is not a time to be confirming on the basis of somebody being less abysmal than another in disrespecting the rule of immigration laws.
Ms. Lynch's most direct indication that she does not have the utmost respect for the rule of law in the area of immigration was in her pronouncing Pres. Obama's executive amnesties as reasonable. I've struggled with what Ms. Lynch could have said when asked about the President's executive actions. I don't think we can seriously expect a President to nominate somebody who would tell Congress in the confirmation hearing that the President is breaking the law. But surely a nominee for this post could reserve some judgment, give some sign of intending to be the independent official the job requires, and pledge to review the issues carefully as they arise, rather than treat as settled the actions that are widely believed to be -- or suspected of being -- unconstitutional.
Perhaps the most important fact to remember about the President's executive amnesties is that they have offered work permits to millions of unlawfully present foreign citizens so that they can compete for every U.S. job that opens up while tens of millions of working-age Americans remain outside the workplace.
Ms. Lynch magnified her dismissive attitude about the seriousness of enforcing immigration laws in her gut-reaction answer to Senate questioning about who should be getting U.S. jobs as they open up. Although numerous court rulings over our history have confirmed that a primary purpose of immigration laws is to protect vulnerable workers of our national community, Ms. Lynch answered that as long as illegal aliens are in this country she wanted them to be holding jobs. This was an incredible answer. The would-be Attorney General seemed to be saying that despite the fact that illegal aliens would probably need to have broken several laws to obtain a U.S. job, she was just fine with their lawlessness.
Rather than rising to the level we should expect of our highest law enforcement official, Ms. Lynch seemed to sink to the level of many nationally known religious leaders and editorial writers of major newspapers who over recent years have begun to treat immigration laws as somehow illegitimate. At their base, these beliefs reveal a callous attitude toward the members of our national community who struggle to find jobs or, if they have jobs, who struggle to make ends meet because of the depressed wages. What these opponents of immigration laws generally share is a fair amount of rhetoric about the importance of justice for the weaker members of our society while allowing themselves to look the other way from the millions of those weaker members who are economically drowning in the nation's surplus pools of labor. The anti-worker surplus results in part because our immigration laws invite too many foreign workers each year and in part because federal officials during the last four Administrations have largely refused to enforce what restrictions Congress has put on the flow of foreign workers.
Every country has immigration restrictions to protect its workers. Every country's workers deserve to have a leader of law enforcement who will see that those laws and protections are enforced.
Despite failing to show understanding of that in her confirmation hearings, Ms. Lynch might have prevented us from taking this action against her if she had subsequently made a full-throated apology for her earlier remarks and then made convincing statements that she recognizes the importance of immigration laws in protecting the American public's economic and physical security and that she respects the primacy that the Constitution gives Congress on this issue. She did not. We urge her rejection, especially for the sake of our country's most vulnerable workers.
-- ROY BECK is President & Founder of NumbersUSA
