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."

URGENT ACTION Your Senator voted to block House-passed DHS bill from coming to floor for debate

Dear activists,

Earlier today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a motion to bring the House-passed DHS appropriations bill to the floor for a vote. This motion, which required 60 votes to pass, was opposed by every Democratic Senator and Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada. Sen. McConnell motioned to bring the bill back to the Senate floor, so future votes are expected.

Please send a fax to your Democratic U.S. Senator(s) and criticize their vote that puts amnesty and work permits for illegal aliens ahead of funding for DHS.

http://www.alipac.us/f9/house-votes-...senate-316795/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/gop-led-hous...macare-317284/

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Has A Ted Cruz Problem

FEBRUARY 03, 2015 4:06 PM ET
AILSA CHANG


Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is insisting the Department of Homeland Security not get any money unless Republicans get to undo the president's immigration policies.

Brendab Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

A bill funding the Department of Homeland Security failed in the Senate Tuesday because it would block the president's executive action on deportations. The question now is, what will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell try next?

The department runs out of money on Feb. 27. Texas senator and potential presidential candidate Ted Cruz insists DHS not get any money unless Republicans get to undo the president's immigration policies. That places McConnell in a dilemma — how does he placate Cruz and his allies while avoiding a shutdown of the agency?

"We should use the power of confirmations and we should use the power of the purse."

- Sen. Ted Cruz

Republican Cruz has vowed he will stop at nothing to block the president's executive action on immigration. And when you ask him exactly how he intends to do that, he says it's already in writing. Go look it up.

"I wrote a long op-ed two months ago, laying [out] precisely what we should do. We should use the power of confirmations and we should use the power of the purse," Cruz said as he slipped into an elevator at the Capitol.

His op-ed argues those are the two ways to defeat the president's executive action. Block all nominations, except those vital to national security. And deny funding for Obama's plan to defer deportations for some 5 million immigrants living here illegally.

Problem for Cruz is, he can't actually make either proposal happen.

"If you're a coalition of one or five, you can gum up the works for a little bit of time, but it's very hard to grind the Senate to a halt," said Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.

Traditionally, the Senate does give individual senators some leverage. For example, Cruz could object to holding votes on nominations, or object to a bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security but doesn't undercut the president's immigration policies. However, it's ultimately up to the Senate majority leader to decide what actually reaches the floor.

"Mitch McConnell obviously has a whole range of incentives and a whole range of goals that he has as leader. He's not necessarily going to see eye to eye strictly with what Sen. Cruz wants to do," says Binder.

i
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sen. Ted Cruz listen while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

So Cruz has thrown down the gauntlet, leaving it up to McConnell to make the next move on the president's executive action. Last December on the Senate floor, Cruz said he'd give his leader the benefit of the doubt for now — and added this warning.

"I would note that a whole lot of citizens across this country feel a little bit like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football, where in fight after fight, leadership and Congress says, 'We'll fight next time. Not this time.' "

So what will that fight look like? The House bill defunding the president's executive action failed in the Senate Tuesday afternoon. After that, McConnell has exactly 24 days before the Department of Homeland Security runs out of cash.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he knows how this story's going to end.

"We should pass a Homeland Security bill with no strings attached to it. That's where we're going to wind up," said Reid, on the floor this week.

McConnell has already promised there won't be any government shutdowns under his watch. But he hasn't yet tipped his hand on whether he'll allow a vote on a DHS funding bill that doesn't have policy provisions attached. There are plenty of other things McConnell surely wants to move on to, such as trade, repealing parts of the health care law and rolling back the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reforms.

But how do you solve a problem like Ted Cruz? Jeanne Zaino of Iona College says it's easy — just let Cruz, the potential 2016 candidate, show everyone he fought the fight. He doesn't actually have to win.

"His interest is in appeasing his constituents, appeasing the far right and appeasing his funders. And he's done a remarkably good job for a freshman senator at doing that," says Zaino.

The joke is, there's always somebody in the Senate running for president. And Democrat Tom Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, says those members are bound to be disruptive.

"They need to make statements. They need to be bold, and the Senate doesn't work on bold and declarative, stand-your-ground positions," says Daschle.

It's in fact the opposite, Daschle says. What McConnell's challenge is, is designing a counterstrike against President Obama that will actually garner enough votes in the Senate. Or wait to fight this fight another day.

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/03/383576...-for-mcconnell