Washington, D.C. – Today, seventeen states, including Alabama, filed a lawsuit challenging President Obama’s lawless executive action on immigration, stating that the President acted outside the scope of his Constitutional authority.

Alabama is one of seventeen plaintiff states in the suit, along with Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Congressman Brooks stated, “I commend these seventeen states, including our own state of Alabama, for taking the initiative to rein in Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional executive overreach.  As the complaint states, ‘This lawsuit is not about immigration.  It is about the rule of law, presidential power, and the structural limits of the U.S. Constitution.’  This is not a partisan issue.  When one branch of the government usurps the powers of another, it affects all Americans, because it threatens the very core of our system of checks and balances that has served our government, and America, so well for so long.  If the President can ‘change the law’ as he says he can, what, then, is the purpose of Congress?”

Congressman Brooks continued, “Thankfully, our system of government has a judicial branch to remedy Constitutional abuses.  I am proud to see Alabama’s Attorney General, Luther Strange, along with others, stand up against this shattering of America’s lawmaking process.  The lines separating our branches of government are not blurry, nor are they flexible; they are clearly defined by our Constitution, and it is our duty as Americans to challenge actions that undermine them.”

Congressman Brooks continued, “Instead of acting against the law, the President, pursuant to his Constitutional duties of chief law enforcer, should be enforcing the law—acting in the interest of, not to the detriment of, the American family.  Adding millions of illegal aliens to the pool of lawful workers will hurt already-struggling American families’ ability to find jobs that pay enough to make ends meet.  It is unfathomable that a United States President, who takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution, not only acts to undermine the Constitution, but does so in a way that hurts all Americans regardless of ethnicity, race, or sex.”

Congressman Brooks concluded, “I strongly support the states’ challenge to Obama’s lawless executive overreach.  I urge House Leadership to do the same.  Too much is at stake—indeed the very fabric of our Republic—to sit idly by while the Executive branch usurps authority granted solely to Congress by the U.S. Constitution.  We must be as steadfast in defending our Constitution as our Founders were in creating it.”

In response to President Obama’s executive amnesty, Brooks introduced House Resolution 757 to authorize the House of Representatives to seek a declaratory judgment action in federal court to determine whether President Obama’s amnesty executive order violates the Constitution and federal immigration law duties, and, if so, to obtain injunctive relief and a writ of mandamus to compel President Obama and the Executive Branch to obey immigration laws as passed by Congress, signed into law by presidents, and interpreted by federal judges.

The complaint by the 17 states can be found here.

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