House and Senate conservative lawmakers on Monday began circulating draft legislation that would attempt to block President Obama’s executive action to limit deportations and provide work permits and Social Security cards to some illegal immigrants.
The proposal runs in contrast to Republican appropriators in the House, who are planning to introduce a spending plan next week that would fund the remainder of fiscal 2015, without addressing the president’s Nov. 20 deportation directive.
The conservatives’ plan would fund the government for a limited time, in the form of a continuing resolution, or CR, so that a new GOP Senate majority could work with the House GOP majority in 2015 to defund Obama’s actions in a long-term spending bill.
“Conservatives want a short-term CR with a policy rider that defunds the president’s executive amnesty,” a top conservative GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “The idea would be to pass something like that ASAP out of the House, send it to the Senate for a vote, and force Senate Democrats to take a position on the president’s executive amnesty.”
Republican leaders have been meeting to decide how to move forward with the soon-to-expire government funding bill without ending up in a showdown with Democrats or Obama.
Any bill that strips funding is likely to face Democratic opposition or a presidential veto, which could result in at least a partial closure of the government. The public has typically blamed the GOP when the government closes because of budget gridlock.
Congress must pass a new funding bill by Dec. 11.
Republican appropriators in the House said last month that they cannot stop Obama from spending money on his new deportation policy because the matter is handled by an agency funded entirely by fees, not Congress.
But some conservatives disagree, saying they can add language blocking the use of fees to carry out Obama’s order.
The conservatives’ draft legislation would stipulate that “no part of any appropriation contained in this or any other act, including funds or fees collected or otherwise made available for expenditure, may be used by any agency to implement, administer, enforce or carry out” the president’s Nov. 20 order.
