This Is What a Civil Rights Commissioner Concluded About Sen. Sessions’s Record

Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, testified in his personal capacity at Sen. Jeff Sessions’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kirsanow and his assistant examined bills Sen. Sessions sponsored and co-sponsored during his tenure in the Senate, and his public actions on matters related to civil rights issues. What he concluded contradicts what the senator’s opponents claim:

In the one-minute clip, Kirsanow said he “found that Sen. Sessions’s approach to civil rights matters both in terms of his legislative record and his other actions [are] consistent with mainstream textual interpretation of relevant statutory and constitutional authority, as well as governing precedent. Our examination also reveals that Sen. Sessions’s approach to civil rights is consistent — it’s legally sound, intellectually honest, and has an appreciation and understanding of the historical bases for civil rights laws.”

You can read the full transcript of Kirsanow’s testimony (three-page PDF).

With a true understanding of civil rights for American citizens, Kirsanow wrote a letter to President Barack Obama (who leaves office next week) in 2014 warning him how granting amnesty to illegal aliens would impact black Americans. He also noted that illegal immigration generally “has a disparate impact on black men, because these men are disproportionately represented in the low-skilled labor force.”