Sen. Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE (R-Ala.) said President Obama’s immigration policies are a “hammer blow” the middle class.

“President Obama must end the immigration lawlessness,” Sessions said. “Even if the president could be trusted, the Senate Democrat plan he embraces would deliver a hammer blow to working Americans.”

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Sessions comments came as House Republicans are deciding whether to consider bipartisan immigration reform that passed in the Senate last year. Sessions has so far applauded Speaker John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerLongtime House parliamentarian to step down Five things we learned from this year's primaries Bad blood between Pelosi, Meadows complicates coronavirus talks MORE (R-Ohio) for not considering the bill. But because of political pressures, Republicans are reconsidering that decision.

Sessions said the legislation would increase the number of immigrant workers at a time when U.S. unemployment numbers are high.

“The president’s plan doubles the flow of immigrant workers to compete against unemployed Americans and triples the number of mostly lesser-skilled permanent immigrants granted legal residency over the next decade,” Sessions said at the end of last week. “The only plan the president and Senate Democrats appear interested in supporting would hollow out a shrinking American middle class.”

Sessions, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been an ardent opponent of immigration reform.