Ted Poe: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the issue before us today is whether the U.S. Constitution will be…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the issue before us today is whether the U.S. Constitution will be followed by the President or not. That is the issue. That is why we have this unusual situation, where the House of Representatives, by this resolution, is joining in on a legal action to let that be resolved by the judiciary branch of government. It all started in November of 2014, when the Department of Homeland Security wrote out a memo and sent it out to the fruited plain and said that the Department of Homeland Security would no longer enforce U.S. immigration law. The Department of Homeland Security is a branch, a portion of the administration. This unprecedented, unilateral action by the executive branch was a nullification of immigration law of the United States. And it was not done by Congress. It was done by administrative edict that came from the White House. Article I, section 8, clause 4 states that Congress--that is us--has the power ``to establish an uniform rule of naturalization'' in the United States. So what value is the law or the Constitution if the executive, who is supposed to enforce the law--not make it, as we all learned in ninth grade civics--sends out a memo saying it will no longer enforce the law? The law of the land is repealed by the administrative pen because the President doesn't like the law, as written.…”