Tea party conservatives from across the country rallied Wednesday outside the Capitol, denouncing President Obama’s temporary amnesty and urging lawmakers to address it now rather than later.
“If you can build the Panama Canal, build a goddamn fence,” shouted Teresa Pierce, a retired GM auto worker who drove more than 600 miles from Perrinton, Michigan, for the demonstration.
“It was hard work,” Ms. Pierce, 56, said of her decades as an inspector on the assembly line, “but now everything is being taken away from me to give to illegal immigrants.”
She carpooled from Michigan with five compatriots to tell Congress to secure border and “fix immigration,” including stopping Mr. Obama’s unilateral action to grant legal status and work permits to nearly half the United State’s estimated 12 million undocumented residents, she said.
Other demonstrators carried placards that read “illegally entering the United States is not a right to citizenship” and “Obama cannot make law, Obama must uphold and enforce laws.”
The rally was led by a coalition of tea party champions, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Iowa Rep. Steve King and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.
They called on fellow Republicans to join them in an effort to block the plan pushed by GOP leaders to pass short-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security and Mr. Obama’s amnesty plan in order to delay the fight until the next Congress, when they control both the House and Senate and have more leverage.
Republican lawmakers who support the plan say they want to avoid a government shutdown.
Ms. Bachmann called on her colleagues to instead “listen to the people.”
“They want us to faithfully uphold the laws of the land, just as they want their president to faithfully execute and uphold the laws of the land. It is that simple and yet it is that profound,” Ms. Bachmann told roughly three dozen demonstrators on the Capitol grounds. “I say we listen to the people. The peoples’ voice must prevail.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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