Jeff Sessions named head of subcommittee on immigration, renames it

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, his office announced in a Thursday release. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)—another immigration hardliner who’s stood with Sessions every step of the way over the past several years—will serve as that subcommittee’s deputy chairman.

Sessions will also chair the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee. This announcement comes after Sessions, who was in line to chair the full Senate Budget Committee, stepped aside to allow Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) to chair it. Enzi asserted seniority, even though Sessions has been ranking member for the last four years. Sessions and Enzi were elected to the U.S. Senate on the same day, but Enzi technically due to the luck of the draw.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to chair these two crucial subcommittees,” Sessions said in his statement, before detailing what he will do with each subcommittee.

As chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, Sessions said his focus “will be to advance the core interests of the nation and its people” over the interests of lobbyists, special interests and illegal aliens.

“On no issue have special interests had a tighter grip than on the issue of immigration,” Sessions said, noting his first action as chairman will be renaming the subcommittee to a much more fitting name.

That is why I am renaming the subcommittee “Immigration and the National Interest,” as a declaration to the American people that this subcommittee belongs to them. Senator Vitter, a strong voice for the national interest, will be serving as Republican Deputy Chairman. The financial and political elite have been controlling this debate for years; this subcommittee will give voice to those whose voice has been shut out: the voice of the dedicated immigration officers who have been blocked from doing their jobs; the voice of the working families whose wages have been reduced by years of record immigration; the voice of the American IT workers who are being replaced with guest workers; the voice of the parents who are worried about their schools and hospitals; and the voice of all Americans who believe we must have a lawful system of immigration they can be proud of and that puts their interests first.