Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Immigration moves to fore
Sessions’ views could dominate Senate hearing
WASHINGTON — When federal prosecutors came to San Diego for conferences in the 1980s, the U.S. attorney there, Peter Nunez, would invite them to the border to survey the chaotic conditions.
“No fences, few lights, no cameras. Thousands of illegal aliens coming across the border,” he recalled last week.
One person who went along, he said, was Jeff Sessions, then U.S. attorney for the southern district of Alabama. The two men bonded over a shared belief that too many people were immigrating to America — whether they jumped the border or entered legally.
Eventually, Nunez became board chairman of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that pushes for strict curbs on immigration. Sessions went on to be elected senator from Alabama and will sit Tuesday for the start of his two-day Senate confirmation hearing as Presidentelect Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney general.
Already well known as the Senate’s fiercest opponent of immigration, Sessions holds views shaped in part as he forged close ties over several decades to the Center for Immigration Studies and two other groups with similar agendas, NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. With Sessions poised to be an influential voice on immigration policy in the Trump administration, these formerly fringe groups have their best chance yet to see Washington policy turn decisively in their direction.
“He’s going to do great,” Trump said Monday of Sessions, dismissing any possible concerns over his confirmation. “High-quality man.”
Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which organizes grass-roots opposition to pro-immigration measures, said he recognized a kindred spirit in Sessions when he first visited him in his Senate office in the 1990s.
“You’re always looking for the people who understand that legal immigration has to be kept down,” Beck said, adding that Sessions immediately agreed with Numbers’ argument that more immigrants hurt American workers.
“He’s kept that flame alive. We now have the chief cheerleader for (that viewpoint) as attorney general.”
The organizations have pushed for uncompromising enforcement, and oppose attempts to provide legal status for people in the U.S. illegally. Their ultimate goal, though, is not just to lock down the border, but to dramatically reduce the numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S.
Sessions plunged into his crucial role in the movement when he helped lead the opposition to the 2007 immigration reform bill supported by former President George W. Bush, which ultimately failed in the Senate.
“No one played a more important and public role in defeating it,” the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which presented Sessions with an award for his work against the legislation, wrote in its newsletter. “Like a grand master chess player, Sessions devised strategy after strategy to block, thwart, delay and ultimately defeat the bill.”
In 2013, Sessions worked again to derail another bill to reform the immigration system. A lawyer for the Center for Immigration Studies went to work for him on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Sessions ran the immigration subcommittee, on rallying opposition to the measure; it passed the Senate but never came up for a vote in the House.
“We were the spearhead of work during that legislation,” said the attorney, Janice Kephart, adding that Sessions was “extremely demanding” in insisting that staff analyze the entire 1,700-page bill. “The thing for him on lower immigration really has to do with keeping jobs in America. He did stand out in ways that ticked off his fellow Republicans at times.”
In fighting against the two bills, many Republicans talked about the rule of law and securing borders. But few went as far as Sessions, who adopted the populist arguments of the restrictionist groups, saying that pro-immigration business interests were selling out unskilled American workers.
He also sided with the groups after Republican leaders wrote a report examining the GOP’s 2012 presidential election loss and argued that the party was doomed unless it embraced immigration reform and increased the party’s standing with Latinos.
“This election … was lost because millions of dutiful Americans didn’t think we cared enough about people like them,” Sessions said in a 2013 speech to a far-right group, the David Horowitz Freedom Center. “Is it going to help their children find a job if we legalize 10 million people? I don’t think so. The Chamber of Commerce isn’t very concerned about that.”
Little economic evidence exists showing that more immigration pushes down wages or costs Americans jobs, according advocates for a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally. They say those views are often a smokescreen to conceal a racially driven antiimmigrant agenda.
The Senate should “hold Sessions accountable” for his long alliance with the anti-immigration groups, Lynn Tramonte of America’s Voice, a group that advocates for a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally, said in an email. “Americans deserve to have a full and public airing of Sessions’ relationship with extremist organizations as part of this process.”