Senator Grassley sounds angry in his approximately three minute YouTube post this week. He says an internal memo sent by Alejandro Mayorkas, director U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), to four of Mayorkas’ own staff “revealed a possible effort by this administration to provide backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants.” Grassley got my attention with “backdoor amnesty.” That sounds bad. I hit pause and immediately went to Grassley’s website and read the offending 11 page memo.
Back to YouTube: Grassley requests that the Senate Judiciary Committee call the “the Director of Homeland Security and the authors of the memo to appear before Judiciary to explain the documents and the impetus behind their plans.” Well, there was only one author of the memo, and I did not see any “plans.” While some of the points raised in the memo are questionable, no matter how one looks at the memo, it can be seen as nothing more than a think-piece. It was not sent up the chain-of-command, it was sent down. Grassley has no evidence policy has changed in anyway. Unless she is micro-managing, it may very well be the first the Director of Homeland Security knew of this memo was when she received Grassley’s inquiry about it two weeks ago.
Grassley goes on to say he has not received replies to two letters he sent to the Administration regarding immigration. He says the Administration has “not reassured us that they will not circumvent Congress to legalize millions of immigrants.” Well, they did when they took the Oath of Office, but some will say I am just being snarky. Grassley is playing a bit of a game. The Obama Administration has not said they would circumvent Congress either, nor have they changed immigration policy in any meaningful way. Apparently five mid to lower level employees had a discussion about what could be done should Congress continue to fail to act on immigration. That, Senator, is their job.
Senator Grassley continues by saying, “if there is nothing to hide, the Administration should be able to provide a complete report about how this authority has been used and will be used in the future. If something bigger is underway and implemented, large numbers of undocumented immigrants could be put out of reach of immigration enforcement officials.” Sorry, Senator, the Administration’s refusal to answer every time you accuse them of something underhanded, especially when you present no sign anything has happened, does not make them guilty. Even worse is the line about keeping undocumented immigrants out of reach of law enforcement. If Grassley had a whiteboard instead of a muted Capitol over his shoulder, I would imagine it would say Grassley=supporter of the law and Obama=supporter of law breakers.
Senator Grassley closes with, “keeping Congress and the American people in the dark just isn’t right… we need to get to the bottom of this and find the motivations behind his memo. We ought to know if there is an end-run around the Congress of the United States.” I agree lightness and open government is better than darkness and backroom deals. If the Administration does something to circumvent the law, the offenders should be penalized. However, five government staffers discussing policy options is, well, something we should all expect and, dare I say it, encourage. Just because Senator Grassley takes an angry tone and implies so, does not mean something dirty is going on. No laws were broken. The Senator should stand down.
But, now that I have read the USCIS memo, I wonder what came out of the follow-up meeting…
No comments:
Post a Comment