Igor Volsky
Think Progress
6/26/2012
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) floated the possibility of impeaching President Obama over the administration’s recent decisions on immigration, during an appearance on Bill Bennett’s radio show on Tuesday.
Responding to a question about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to pull back “on a program known as 287(g) — which allows the feds to deputize local officials to make immigration-based arrests” — following the Supreme Court’s ruling invalidating substantial sections of Arizona’s SB 1070, Kyl said the president must be held accountable:
BENNETT: How do you make the feds cooperate [with state immigration efforts]?
KYL: Well, that’s the executive’s job and there are only a couple of ways to do it… If the president insists on continuing to ignore parts of the law that he doesn’t like, and simply not enforce that law, the primary remedy for that is political. And you have it two ways: one is oversight through the Congress to demonstrate what they’re doing wrong and there are some potential criminal charges there for dereliction of duty. Although, I haven’t looked that up yet. And the other part of it is people need to react through the ballot box to turn out of office those people who are not doing their duty. Now if it’s bad enough and if shenanigans involved in it, then of course impeachment is always a possibility. But I don’t think at this point anybody is talking about that.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) adopted a similarly bellicose tone towards the president on Monday, saying, “I guess he doesn’t think we’re part of the country anymore.”
Listen to Sen. Kyl’s remarks at Think Progress.
H/T The Washington Times where the audio is also available.
Related: Arizona sheriff: If ICE won’t get them, we’ll ‘dump them on their doorstep’ [Video]
Power grab: How Obama bends the rule of law
Obama’s New Immigration Policy Is A Huge Hit In Three Crucial Swing States
Update: Laura Ingraham Hosts the O’Reilly Factor — Obama Administration’s Response to Immigration Law Ruling
