Mike Lee

The President has stated a need to pass additional legislative reform, and I support that.

Yes, I believe that there can, and should, be additional improvements to our legislation--to our patent system through legislation.

I do believe that we still need legislative reform.

I strongly recommend her swift and unanimous confirmation and I just want her to know that we are extremely proud of her.

It has been my view, or, at least, a fear of mine, that there might be a natural tendency in any trial court for a judge to engage in what I sometimes refer to as trial by attrition.

This is a good day for Utah, a good day for the Federal judiciary.

You appeared to be aware about an order that Attorney General Holder issued just about a week and a half or two weeks ago--I believe it was on January 16--restricting that.

I hope that we can move meaningful legislation to deal with this issue because it is not going away.

I am convinced it violates Federal law as enacted by the Congress.

Does not Federal law currently say, statute on the books, does not Federal law currently say that if you are in the United States unlawfully and you leave the United States while here unlawfully and then you try to come back that you will…

I hope even this Administration would recognize that is not grounds for admission to the United States and would turn the individual around.

It is clear that the President and his Administration are removing certain statutory obstacles to citizenship, obstacles that were put in place by law, by acts of Congress.

But what the President did is actually make it harder because he poisoned the well creating what is already a very controversial subject.

The problem with what the President did, of course, is it defied what common sense tells us is going to be required for sustainability of any change to our immigration system and that is consensus.

the notion that they can take the decision not to prosecute or not to remove and deport individuals who are here unlawfully and convert that into a lawful presence that gives entitlement to work authorization is beyond anything that this…

the lawmaking power that we the people delegated to the Federal Government is vested in this body, in the Congress of the United States, not in the Executive.

if these four words creates the unfettered discretion that the President and his Office of Legal Counsel claim, there is no intelligible principle whatsoever, no channeling of the discretion given to the Executive.

So the Chairman does not want a second round of questions. Is that correct?

He has made it more difficult for Congress to move forward and for that I am truly sorry.

My problem with what the President did is that he did it the wrong way.

And yet this program that we are dealing with here would allow an alien to get 'advance parole' and ultimately a green card, ultimately potentially citizenship so long as that person has a meeting with a client in Toronto, rather than…

I think it would strike people as fundamentally unfair for the millions of people who have been waiting patiently in line and playing by the rules.

The Administration is doing this deliberately, conscious of the implications and deliberately concealing the fact that they are setting forth a path to citizenship for most of these 5 million.

Madam Chair, before we close, could I introduce two documents into the record?

These instructions say, 'USCIS may in its discretion grant advance parole if you are traveling outside the United States for educational purposes, employment purposes or humanitarian purposes.'