House Declines to Fund DOJ’s Lawyers-for-Illegals Request

Oh, that damn obstructionist Congress is at it again! Like an angry father who must continually deny his children that shiny new toy, the GOP-led House of Representatives has again said no to the wayward Justice Department. This time, again, the issue at hand is Eric Holder’s desire to see millions of dollars in federal money go to providing lawyers for illegal immigrants. The issue, seemingly common sense, is of course muddied by the administration’s repeated insistence that minor-age illegals be treated differently.

Still, the Republicans held firm, maintaining their August 1st spending budget which cut all funding for illegal immigrant attorneys out of the bill. This is at least the second time this month that the GOP has sent that kind of request packing. Last week, Rep. Frank Wolf said no to a Justice Department request that $4 million out of a $13.2 million transfer-to-legal budget be diverted to hiring lawyers for immigrants under 18.

If you had a sheet of paper, a pencil, and 30 minutes, how many better ways could you come up with to spend $4 million?

This issue continues to come up. In July, the president asked Congress to consider providing free legal representation to the thousands of illegal immigrant surging across the border. At that time, he actually asked for $18 million in legal services, snuggled comfortably in a larger request for $3.7 billion to address the illegal immigrant situation. Of course, the GOP would be working against their own aims if they agreed to such funding. By sending these illegals free lawyers, they would undoubtedly send many of them on the path to green cards. That, of course, would put them right in line for most federal welfare programs as well as Obamacare.

It’s hard to listen to the president, Eric Holder, and other leftists claim that the illegals deserve “due process” before being shipped back to their home countries. What does that even mean? Why do they deserve that? Why do so many on the left believe that anyone who scraped their way past the border is automatically wrapped in the U.S. Constitution? They believe it about illegal immigrants, they believe it about terrorists…sometimes the loonier among them even believe it about criminals abroad.

From Obama and Holder’s perspective, it’s easy to understand. After all, $18 million is $18 million, and when your aim is to grow the federal government as large as it can possibly go, you’ll try for every penny you can get. Perhaps in the coming years we’ll see a new federal department. Department of Undocumented Guests has a nice leftist ring to it. Or, you know, we could just have some common sense about the whole thing and send these people back home.