Thread: Bill to undo Obama immigration actions, fund DHS fails in Senate test vote

Bill to undo Obama immigration actions, fund DHS fails in Senate test vote

Published February 03, 2015 FoxNews.com

A bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security while also unraveling President Obama's immigration actions failed on a test vote in the Senate on Tuesday, likely forcing majority Republicans to come back with an alternative plan ahead of a looming funding deadline.

The bill failed on a 51-48 vote in the Senate, after the House approved similar legislation last month. It needed 60 votes to advance in the Senate.

At least one Republican, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, voted along with a unified Democratic caucus to block the bill.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security expires Feb. 27.

Republicans attached measures in the latest bill that would undo Obama's immigration actions, which aim to shield 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

The president reiterated his concerns that the battle over DHS funding was putting national security at risk ahead of the vote. He said department workers "need certainty in order to do their jobs."
Obama spoke at the beginning of a meeting with his Cabinet, a day after sending his $4 trillion budget to Congress. "The men and women of America's homeland security apparatus do important work to protect us, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not be playing politics with that," Obama said at DHS headquarters on Monday.

But conservatives want to use the budget bill as leverage to combat the president's immigration actions.

Democrats have said they oppose anything other than a clean funding bill. It was unlikely that Republicans would be able to pull off Tuesday's vote since they only have a 54-seat majority.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...cmp=latestnews

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f9/first-senate...2015-a-317241/

Democrats block effort to derail immigration order

Erin Kelly, USA TODAY2:56 p.m. EST February 3, 2015


(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats blocked passage Tuesday of a Homeland Security spending bill that would have derailed President Obama's order to protect about 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Senators voted 51-48 on a procedural motion to advance the bill. Republicans fell short of the 60 votes needed.

Unless a compromise on a new bill can be reached by the end of the month, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will expire and the agency will face a partial shutdown.

The battle over the $40 billion funding bill focused on House-passed amendments that would cut off funding for Obama's latest immigration order and end his 2012 program that provided protection from deportation and work permits for undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children.

USA TODAY Democrats move to block GOP on immigration

USA TODAY House votes to block Obama's immigration action

Republicans say Obama overstepped his authority in November when he announced he would effectively give temporary legal status to some undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, allowing them to get work permits and someday receive Social Security and Medicare benefits if they work long enough and pay into the Social Security system.

The president also expanded his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program has helped about 600,000 young immigrants — who call themselves "DREAMers" — by allowing them to stay in the country for at least two years and obtain work permits.

"At its core, this debate is about whether Democrats think presidents of either party should have the power to simply do what they want," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday as he urged senators to pass the bill. "And while this is about more than just President Obama, it's also true that President Obama has repeatedly reached beyond his authority."

Obama said he has the legal authority to take executive action and did so only after the House failed to take up immigration reform last year. The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill in the last session of Congress.

Democratic senators said Republicans are willing to risk the nation's security over immigration politics.

"Why should we be dealing with issues that have nothing to do with homeland security?" said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We should pass a homeland security bill with no strings attached to it."

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Tuesday that the department cannot do its job if a funding bill is not approved by Congress. The department is currently operating under a temporary resolution passed by Congress late last year that funds DHS at 2014 levels through the end of the month.

Johnson said the agency, as long as it is operating under the resolution, cannot give federal grants to states, local governments and tribes to buy new communications equipment for police, improve campus security at colleges and universities, upgrade oxygen masks for firefighters or pay for police dogs to help detect explosives.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...rder/22796301/

So the Democrats told the American People that illegal benefits for illegal aliens was more important than securing our nation. If I were the House, I'd say, you had a bill to fund DHS, and you failed to pass it, and move on to passing the FairTax bill. Let DHS flounder, send them all home without their paychecks, we don't care about ISIS. We have the FBI in the Justice Department, we have a US Defense Department, and better than all that we have over 800,000 state and local police officers who can find a terrorist better and faster than "Homeland Security", plus they can enforce US immigration law as it stands.

Hard ball works both ways. And frankly, I believe Americans will be pleasantly surprised to see how little difference the Department of Homeland Security actually makes in our lives. After all, I believe they've authorized the entry of every foreign terrorist in the United States that's committed a terrorist act on US soil and have let 20,000 more Syrians in to do whatever they want here, soooooo .... I say lets ride without them.

Plus, there have been more Americans killed and harmed by just plain ole illegal aliens than by all the terrorist acts to date, before and after 9/11 combined, soooooo .....

DEFUND! DEFUND! DEFUND!

Not a dime, Republicans, not a dime. Stand your ground and save our nation from the biggest threat of all, illegal immigration.

http://www.alipac.us/f12/house-conse...y-bill-317050/

Had this bill had passed it would have de-funded the Obama Amnesty.

How anyone here can support not de-funding the amnesty is beyond me.

"Senate Democrats blocked passage Tuesday of a Homeland Security spending bill that would have derailed President Obama's order to protect about 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation."