The White House said Friday that President Obama will sign into law a short-term funding bill to avoid a midnight shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, a pledge that all but assures the funding fight over his deportation amnesty will last at least three more weeks.
“The truth is, if the president is faced with the choice between the short-term extension and shutting down the Department of Homeland Security, he will sign the short-term extension,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said at the daily press briefing.
The president’s willingness to accept the temporary funding being pushed by House Republicans likely will send the immigrate fight into overtime.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, has gambled that another shutdown deadline in three weeks will give his party the upper hand to force Democrats to accept restriction to Mr. Obama’s actions, which seek to grant resident status, work permits and Social Security numbers to more than 4 million illegal immigrants.
Republicans insist that Congress has a duty to oppose what they deem illegal and unconstitutional actions by the president.
Democrats disagree, arguing that Mr. Obama exercised executive authority over immigration law as other presidents have, albeit on a larger scale.
SEE ALSO: John Boehner pushes Homeland Security funding extension to avert shutdown
Mr. Earnest urged Mr. Boehner to back down and allow his chamber to vote on a “clean” bill that fully funds the department but doesn’t restrict immigration actions.
“Right now the choice the speaker is facing is are we going to fund the agency for three weeks or are we going to fund it for the full year and are we going to do it at levels that are agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans as clearly in the best interest of the American people,” Mr. Earnest said.
“So the truth is, the choice for the president’s a little difficult, but the choice for the Speaker of the House is really easy,” he said. “Let’s hope he makes the right one.”
The Senate on Friday passed a clean bill that provides $40 billion to fund the department for the rest of the fiscal year.
But Senate Democrats only allowed it to pass after Republicans capitulated to demands that they strip out measures that would bock Mr. Obama’s immigration actions.
House Republicans, however, so far have refused to surrender the immigration fight and instead are expected to pass the short-term measure later Friday.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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