Speaker Boehner & House GOP Intent on Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Threatening National Security
"Republicans need to put an end to their reckless tactics and internal bickering. Their temper tantrums are jeopardizing the safety of the American people and the funding of the Department of Homeland Security – all in a shameless effort to placate their anti-immigrant elements. We must pass a clean DHS bill and end these shut down shenanigans right away. "
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With a month left until the Department of Homeland Security shuts down…
Homeland Security funding on the brink…the House has no solution for the funding cliff.
Top Republicans are increasingly unworried about missing the Department of Homeland Security's funding deadline…leading Republicans say the fallout would be limited if Congress fails to act…top House GOP figures say most of DHS's 280,000 employees will stay on the job…though their paychecks would stop coming in the meantime.
That's not the House Republican leadership's goal — they passed their own bill this month. But that line of thinking — discussed privately by multiple lawmakers and aides — illustrates how the debate over Homeland Security funding is beginning to look like an awfully familiar crisis, filled with distrust, sniping, and the same kind of back and forth that has dominated GOP governance for the past few years.
This isn't how this immigration fight was supposed to unfold. When House Republican leaders decided to put DHS on a short funding leash in December, they were betting that even their unpredictable and restless rank and file would blink when it came to national security. With emboldened majorities on Capitol Hill, Republicans planned to put up a fight to gut President Barack Obama's executive actions, but many of them vowed they would not allow the department's funding to lapse at the end of February. The House has passed its bill, with language aimed at gutting Obama's policies — language that won't make it into the Senate's version.
Even as the Senate gears up to pass its bill, the path forward seems very murky…Senior sources in House Republican leadership are now saying they will not bring up a so-called "clean" DHS funding bill…And, illustrating the flux and uncertainty within the House Republican Conference, the border security bill that the House was slated to bring up this week could now be delayed until sometime in late February or March or later this year — a victim of the distrust that the some of the conservative rank and file feel toward leadership…That bill, penned by House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), was meant to quell conservative concerns about the border — but now, many Republicans view it as a back-door way to enact immigration reform and are rejecting attempts to bring it to the floor until well after DHS is funded. In other words, Republicans are rejecting the piecemeal immigration reform they once clamored for.
This isn't what Republican control was supposed to look like. When Republicans were on the precipice of power, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said they would end the legislative cliffhangers that have come to dominate Washington. Instead, they're heading into one.
Not even the Republican leadership is entirely sure what the Senate will do.
"In other words, it's not the end of the world if we get to that time because the national security functions will not stop — whether it's border security or a lot of other issues," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said, though he stressed that Congress shouldn't ignore that deadline. "Having said so, I think we should always aspire to try to get it done."
Blowing past the deadline would raise ire among national security hawks, who want DHS funding restored immediately, especially given the recent violence in Paris.
The internal rifts that are surfacing over immigration have been building since the beginning inside the House Republican conference…The Republicans who theorize the House is moving forward on piecemeal immigration reform might be onto something. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in a brief interview Tuesday that his committee is "working on all the bills that we did last Congress," which would include interior enforcement, E-Verify, a program for agriculture workers and a separate program for high-skilled workers.
This mess has many Republican lawmakers shaking their heads, and more red-faced with anger…He called the situation "frustrating" and said it makes it "difficult to move on to the next issue when you can't deal with the deadline in front of you."