House Republicans will move aggressively next week to block President Obama’s changes to immigration policy with a measure that aims to roll back two critical executive actions that stem deportations.
In a bill announced Friday, Republicans essentially declared war on Obama’s “pen and phone” policy, which he adopted as a way to implement his agenda in the face of staunch GOP opposition in Congress.
Both provisions will be attached to a $40 billion Department of Homeland Security funding measure, a must-pass bill needed to keep the agency running past the Feb. 27 expiration of stopgap legislation.
The bill Republicans introduced Friday includes an amendment authored by Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., which would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from using federal funding or fees to carry out Obama’s November directive allowing more than 5 million illegal immigrants to obtain work permits and some federal benefits.
“We’re going to have what’s called the Mulvaney language, which … says the president can not fund an activity that is unconstitutional and illegal,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas.
A second provision would reverse a 2012 executive action by Obama that provides work permits and benefits for some people who arrived in the U.S. as children illegally.
“We have a strong position with the president’s overreach and he’s acted unconstitutionally,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said.
Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, known as DACA, after Republicans in Congress blocked a similar proposal in the form of legislation known as the Dream Act.
Democrats are all but guaranteed to vote against the measure, and President Obama is certain to veto it even in the unlikely event the GOP is able to round up enough Democratic votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster.
That means House Republicans likely will be forced to come up with an alternative proposal that can garner enough votes to become law and avert the threat of the Department of Homeland Security running out of money at the end of February.
Leadership aides said Republicans will be hashing out what to do next week at the joint GOP Senate-House retreat, which will begin following the vote on the DHS bill, which is likely Wednesday.
Democrats have already staked out their opposition to the DHS amendments.
“Rather than building upon the president’s bold move to keep families together, House Republicans have decided to threaten a partial government shutdown and play politics with the security of our homeland by appeasing the anti-immigrant and extreme right-wing of their party,” said Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “As the risk of terrorism rises, this perilous Republican tactic sends the worst possible message at a very dangerous time.”
During a floor discussion on Friday, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., warned Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., that attaching the two amendments would “undermine the bipartisanship of the legislation.”
McCarthy said the amendments come “in response to the president’s unconstitutional executive action” on immigration policy.
Republican leaders in December had promised their rank and file that if they supported a government-wide, $1.1 trillion spending bill, they would move to defund Obama’s executive actions on immigration when the short-term DHS funding bill expired in February.
“It is the fulfillment of a promise made by Speaker Boehner and it is what we should have expected from a man who promised something,” Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said.
The two amendments will be taken up as part of legislation that increases DHS funding by about $400 million compared to 2014 levels, with most of the new funds dedicated to border enforcement.
The bill includes $10.7 billion for Customs and Border Protection — an increase of $119 million from 2014 and nearly $6 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is $689 million more than last year.
The Transportation Security Administration would lose money under the House bill. The legislation slashes TSA funding by about $94 million, reducing the TSA budget to $4.8 billion.
Other DHS budget winners include the Secret Service, which would see an increase of $80.5 million above 2014. The extra money, which would provide the Secret Service with a budget of $1.7 billion, is meant to help beef up the agency ahead of the 2016 presidential contest. But it’s also intended to address recent presidential security breaches, which lawmakers called in a statement about the measure, “critical failures in communications and training at the White House Complex.”
The legislation also includes $753 million for the National Programs and Protection Directorate to conduct cybersecurity operations.
The money comes in the wake of the cyberattack on Sony Pictures that has been linked to North Korea.
“This funding sustains improvements to the Federal Network Security and Network Security Deployment programs to help blunt cyber-attacks and foreign espionage,” appropriators said.
