Orrin Hatch: “as the Appropriations Committees prepare to release the product of their negotiations on a spending bill this afternoon…”

“as the Appropriations Committees prepare to release the product of their negotiations on a spending bill this afternoon, I rise today to discuss the troubling development that has made their work all the more challenging: President Obama's immigration Executive order. By circumventing Congress, the President has dispensed with the duly-enacted law of the land in a unilateral attempt to alter the legal status of millions of immigrants. Unfortunately, this issue of Executive overreach is not a new one. Over the past year, I have come to the Senate floor repeatedly to lay out my objections to President Obama's lawlessness--from the release of Guantanamo detainees to ObamaCare, from his purported recess appointments to Benghazi. Today I come to discuss this latest astonishing instance in the area of immigration. Immigration is a complex and divisive issue, and Americans hold a wide variety of views on the matter. But one thing that should not be controversial is the President's duty to place fidelity to the Constitution over partisan politics. The Constitution vests lawmaking authority with Congress, not the President. And the Framers specifically sought to end centuries of abuses by the English monarchs, who claimed the power to dispense with the laws of the land, by requiring the President to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The Constitution does not suggest or invite the President to enforce the law; it obligates him to do so.…”