House Republicans vowed Tuesday to confront President Obama’s temporary amnesty for illegal immigrants, but they continued to wrestle with how to do it, as conservatives balked at the GOP leadership’s plan to put off the fight until March.
Leaders were counting noses to see whether they had enough support for a three-pronged approach, which would include passing an omnibus spending bill to fund most of the government through the end of the fiscal year, while carving out funding for homeland security programs in a separate measure that would last until early next year, when Congress would revisit the amnesty controversy.
The approach would avoid a government shutdown and preserve the GOP’s chance to fight the president when the next Congress convenes in January and when Republicans will control the House and Senate, giving them more leverage for a battle with the White House.
Some conservatives were reluctant to wait until March, and others said they couldn’t vote for any bill that didn’t try to ban Mr. Obama’s policy — leaving Republican leaders wondering whether they had enough support to move ahead.
“This is a serious breach of our Constitution. It’s a serious threat to our system of government and, frankly, we have limited options and limited abilities to deal with it directly,” House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said of the president’s executive action. “We have not made any decisions on how we are going to proceed, but we are in fact going to proceed.”
In an attempt to appease conservatives itching to take on Mr. Obama, the House also would vote on a bill by Rep. Ted S. Yoho, Florida Republican, that would declare the president’s action void. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he would not bring the bill to the floor, making the House vote largely symbolic.
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House Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting Tuesday to say they were determined to avoid another shutdown after taking the brunt of the blame for closing the government for 16 days in October 2013.
“We’re not going to take that bait,” said Rep. Dennis A. Ross, Florida Republican.
Mr. Obama said he resorted to executive action because House Republicans refused to pass an immigration reform bill that met his standards. His policy would grant legal status and three-year work permits to nearly half of the estimated 12 million undocumented residents in the U.S.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration wants congressional Republicans to fund the entire government for a full year.
“We’re not asking them to do anything heroic. We’re asking them to do their job,” Mr. Earnest said.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson pleaded with lawmakers to give him full funding now, saying that without a new spending bill he won’t be able to hire enough Secret Service agents to protect presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries and won’t be able to expand detention facilities to hold illegal immigrants.
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Republicans have struggled for weeks to devise a strategy that would avoid a shutdown showdown while taking a stand against Mr. Obama’s immigration moves.
House and Senate Republicans who backed Mr. Boehner’s plan insisted it would succeed because enough Democrats in both chambers wanted to pass an overall spending measure, which will be packed with pet projects for their home districts and states.
The omnibus package would fund education, parks, the Defense Department, health programs and the rest of government through Sept. 30. The funding for homeland security, including money for carrying out the immigration amnesty, would expire as late as March, providing a new deadline for trying to rein in Mr. Obama’s actions.
Appropriators from both parties continued to negotiate the omnibus package ahead of a Dec. 11 deadline, when the government’s spending expires.
Mr. Reid voiced tentative support splitting off the immigration issue from the omnibus spending debate, saying that passing full-year funding for all departments except one would be “a great accomplishment.”
“I think it’s a shame that they’re not going to include the very important Homeland Security appropriation bill, but I understand why they’re doing it. We’ll take a look at it,” he said.
Other top Democrats slammed the plan but didn’t threaten to vote it down.
“Singling out DHS, by funding it through a continuing resolution, undermines its ability to carry out its critical homeland security mission such as protecting our air, land and sea borders and cyberspace,” said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Still, a faction of conservatives within the House Republican conference threatened to pull their support unless the stopgap bill bars funding for Mr. Obama’s amnesty plan.
“I will not vote to fund the president’s lawless, unconstitutional act and they should not be asking members to do so,” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican and outspoken opponent of easing immigration laws. “This is the time to fight, this is the ground to fight on. And I’m a little bit amazed that that isn’t more clear to more people.”
Another sticking point appeared to be the length of the short-term funding, with the Republican conference’s more conservative members pushing for funding only through mid-January in order to confront Mr. Obama on the issue as soon as the next Congress convenes.
“If we fund it to mid-March, half the year is already funded,” said Rep. John Fleming, Louisiana Republican. “They’re printing work permits right now.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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