Fox News:
A top Republican lawmaker blasted President Obama after he held an Oval Office meeting this week with illegal immigrants, despite having ignored recent requests for a sit-down from the union representing immigration officers.
“The fact that the president and the vice president are hosting illegal immigrants in the White House while constricting citizen tours and refusing to meet with immigration officers says it all,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said in a statement to FoxNews.com Friday. “The White House will not even grant ICE officers a low-level White House meeting but invites illegal immigrants into the Oval Office.”
Obama and Vice President Biden met Tuesday with eight advocates of immigration legislation, which is making its way through Congress. Three of the participants were listed in the White House readout as having “deferred action” — a term that means they were granted a reprieve, likely via the administration directive last year that allowed some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to avoid deportation and seek work authorization.
Some Republicans are open to ultimately granting permanent legal status to these and other undocumented immigrants. But Sessions, and Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, both complained that the president is at the same time snubbing the law enforcement officials tasked with enforcing U.S. border policies.
Sessions and Goodlatte sent a letter to Obama Thursday asking why the White House had not responded to repeated requests to meet with representatives from the National ICE Council, the union that represents more than 7,000 customs enforcement officers.
According to the letter, the ICE union has been trying to snag a meeting at the White House for three months to discuss the immigration overhaul, to no avail.
“To be effective any immigration reform bill must heed the warnings from our federal immigration agents,” the lawmakers wrote. “Unfortunately, far from being included in the process, ICE officers have been shut out and have even had their day-to-day operations handcuffed by DHS officials to the point of being unable to carry out their sworn duties.”