The massive $1.1 trillion spending before Congress doesn’t kill President Obama’s amnesty action by choking off fees collected by Customs, but does in several other programs, putting in question GOP leadership’s claims that they are powerless to govern how immigration fees are used.
A review of the long legislation shows that Congress would limit or bar agencies from using fees they collect in at least seven programs.
GOP leaders have stated that they can’t touch the fees collected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services because they aren’t taxes.
Conservatives have been pressing the leadership to shut down Obama’s pricey effort to grant worker amnesty to some 5 million illegal immigrants. Sen. Jeff Sessions has highlighted one part of the program to print identification cards that would cost millions and employ hundreds more federal workers.
They argue Congress has the power to block the spending of Customs fees on expanded immigration amnesty, but GOP leaders have claimed they don’t have that kind of power.
But pending spending legislation would do exactly that in other programs such as for Agriculture Department spending as noted in this section:
There are multiple other sections in the spending bill that read the same way.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
