By Chelsea Schilling
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Demonstrators protest against Arizona’s controversial immigration law before marching to the State Capitol in Phoenix May 29, 2010. Angered by Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, several thousand protesters descended on a park in central Phoenix early on Saturday, urging Washington to block the new state law they call racist. REUTERS/Joshua Lott (UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY CIVIL UNREST)

Amid buzz that President Obama may be seeking to parole or “defer action” on millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., eight Republican senators are warning the president not to advance any such plan.

“There’s a lot we can agree on when it comes to dealing with the immigration problems in the United States, but this appears to be amnesty in disguise, and is simply an attempt to circumvent Congress,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement.

Grassley and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; David Vitter, R-La.; Jim Bunning, R-Ky.; James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., signed a letter to the president dated June 21.

“We understand that there’s a push for your administration to develop a plan to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States,” they wrote in their letter. “We understand that the administration may include aliens who have willfully overstayed their visas or filed for benefits knowing that they will not be eligible for a status for years to come.”

“Deferred action” is granted by the Department of Homeland Security. It’s a short-term suspension of deportation hearings for illegal aliens. With “deferred action,” illegals are often allowed to apply for employment-authorization cards.

The lawmakers noted that “deferred action” and parole are discretionary actions reserved for “individual cases that present unusual, emergent or humanitarian circumstances.”

“Deferred action and parole were not intended to be used to confer a status or offer protection to large groups of illegal aliens, even if the agency claims that they look at each case on a ‘case-by-case’ basis,” they wrote.

Eight senators write letter to President Obama, urging him to abandon any plans for “deferred action.”

The senators agreed that the nation’s immigration laws “need to be fixed,” but they added, “While deferred action and parole are executive-branch authorities, they should not be used to circumvent Congress’ constitutional authority to legislate immigration policy, particularly as it relates to the illegal population in the United States.”

Urging Obama for assurance that he has no plans to use either authority, the senators requested that he clarify the administration’s intentions immediately.

“The Administration would be wise to abandon any plans for deferred action or parole for the illegal population,” they wrote. “Such a move would further erode the American public’s confidence in the federal government and its commitment to securing the borders and enforcing the laws already on the books.”

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As WND reported, former Obama adviser and SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina explained that granting citizenship to millions of illegal aliens would expand the “progressive” electorate and help ensure a “progressive” governing coalition for the long term.

“We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters,” Medina said during his speech at a June 2009 Washington conference for the liberal America’s Future Now!

Medina said that during the presidential election in November 2008, Latinos and immigrants “voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up.”