Is Amnesty a Civil Right?

Eric Holder says that amnesty for illegal immigrants is “civil and human right.” On the Senate floor, Jeff Sessions brings an appropriate level of indignation to that illogical claim. Sessions said, in part:

Obama administration officials have gone so far as to describe amnesty as a civil right. That is an argument against the very idea of a nation-state….How could this possibly be, that the Attorney General of the United States of America would assert that people have a constitutional right to enter unlawfully and be given amnesty? … The actual legal rights that are being violated here today I suggest are the rights of the American citizens.

Here is the whole thing:

If you don’t believe in national sovereignty, if you don’t believe that a country is entitled to have a border, then it makes sense to say that a non-citizen has a civil (i.e., legal) right to enter the country and remain forever, regardless of any laws to the contrary. Otherwise, Holder’s proposition–which I think accurately reflects the thinking of the Obama administration–is nonsensical.

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