Thread: House Republicans file FIVE different bills to 'defund Obama 'amnesty' plan

Immigration clash is coming as House Republicans file FIVE different bills to 'defund' Obama 'amnesty' plan that would let millions stay in the US

• Legislation aims to forbid the Dept. of Homeland Security from spending money to implement the White House's immigration executive orders
• There could be a floor vote on at least one of the bills as soon as next week
• Congress put DHS on a short leash in December, leaving it out of the federal budget and approving its funding only through February
• The president would almost certainly veto any law that ties his hands as he aims to guarantee 5 million illegal immigrants that they won't be deported

By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:25 EST, 7 January 2015 | UPDATED: 17:32 EST, 7 January 2015

Republicans in the House of Representatives are falling over each other in the race to file legislation that would stop President Barack Obama from implementing his far-reaching immigration plan.

No fewer than five separate GOP-sponsored bills are already pending in the House just 24 hours after the 114th Congress launched on Tuesday.

They all seek to do largely the same thing: prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from spending a single dime in 2015 on any part of Obama's plan, which he announced in December.

The president's aim is to mainstream 5 million or more people living in the U.S. illegally, giving them residency and work permits and guaranteeing them that they won't be deported back to their home countries.

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IMMIGRATION WARRIORS: Reps. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania and Ted Poe of Texas (right) introduced competing proposals to forbid the Obama administration from spending any money to implement what they have labeled an 'amnesty' for 5 million or more illegal immigrants



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GEARING UP: President Barack Obama, shown in the Oval Office on Wednesday with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, expects a showdown with the GOP over his immigration plans

Republicans, particularly those regarded as ultra-conservative, labeled the scheme an 'amnesty' for lawbreakers and have vowed to block it.

Alabama Reps. Martha Roby and Robert Aderholt have two competing bills. Pennsylvania Rep Tom Marino, Texas Rep. Ted Poe and Florida Rep. Ted Yoho have measures of their own pending.

A confrontation with the White House is expected soon.
'The president’s executive actions with regard to immigration are outside of the Constitution and outside of his powers,' House Speaker John Boehner told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday.

'We can deal with that issue in the Department of Homeland Security bill without jeopardizing the security of our country.'

Republicans still have to deal with Homeland Security funding because they separated it from the federal budget in December as a condition of funding the rest of the government through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.




America's immigration enforcement agencies are part of DHS.
Conservatives had pledged to scuttle the larger budget last month unless they were guaranteed another chance in February to hold the money over Obama's head.

They hope the leverage will force the president to back off from his strategy to give safe harbor to millions of illegal immigrants.
The battle will be joined in a matter of days.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky told Bloomberg on Wednesday that 'the hope is that we could file a bill Friday, in time for it to come to the floor Tuesday or so next week.'

Which bill that will be is anyone's guess.

'We're in the process of determining the best option on this right now,' Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

Roby's spokesman believes her version could easily be incorporated into the looming Homeland Security budget bill.
It would prohibit the expenditure of any money to put Obama's policy changes into action.

'It's very straightforward,' Roby told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. 'It lays out specifically that no funds will be used for these things.'

She added that Republicans knew what they were doing when they teed up a Homeland Security showdown.

'We did that so that we could have this fight on the president's [immigration] overreach,' she said. 'I think that this prohibition language is the best way to do that.'

Rep. Poe's bill has the most momentum, however, with 21 co-sponsors signed on in just one day. (Roby's has none.)

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the measure, nicknamed 'The Separation of Powers Act,' in the coming days.



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WHICH?: House Speaker John Boehner will ultimately have to choose one of several legislative 'defund' proposals before the DHS budget expires on Feb. 28

Showdown expected on Obama's immigration plan




It strips funding from effors 'to grant parole or deferred action to any alien other than for reasons permitted under current law' and 'to provide work permits or green cards to aliens who are currently unlawfully in the U.S.,' according to a press release.

'In his latest effort to completely rewrite our laws, the president has decided to grant amnesty and work permits to millions of foreign nationals,' Poe said.

'What this legislation would do, [it] would allow Congress to exercise its intended role, and "check" the out-of-control White House that has decided to simply pick and choose parts of the Constitution that they like.'

Tennessee Rep. Diane Black, the bill's leading co-sponsor, called Obama's immigration plan an 'end-run around Congress.'

'By cutting off funding for the President’s lawless overreach,' she said, 'we can send a clear message that – despite his illusions – the president cannot simply make up his own laws.'

Rep. Aderholt's bill would go further than the others, both telling DHS what it can't do and what it must do.

In addition to defunding the White House's unilateral plan, it would restore the Secure Communities immigration enforcement plan – a system that Obama killed in November.

Under Secure Communities, local law enforcement agencies shared fingerprints and other information on arrestees with federal immigration authorities, giving them a chance to start federal cases, often including deportation proceedings, against illegal immigrants.

Cities and counties, predominantly those dominated by Democratic politicians, revolted against the plan. Several declared themselves 'sanctuaries' and refused to honor so-called 'detainers' from Immigration and Customs Enforcement – orders to keep people locked up on immigration grounds past the time they would otherwise be released.

Aderholt's bill would also force state and local governments to begin complying.



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DUELING ALABAMIANS: Republican Reps. Martha Roby (left) and Robert Aderholt (right) have separate measures pending in the House to push back against President Obama's planned immigration law changes
McConnell promises to thwart Obama's immigration plan (Archive)




It 'not only defunds the president’s actions towards amnesty but also removes the president’s discretion in the ability to grant work permits, Social Security, and other federal benefits that go along with his order,' the Alabama lawmaker said in a statement.

'My legislation will also put limits on the president’s future ability to enact such wide-reaching actions that circumvent the Constitution’s separation of powers. It returns the legislative authority of our government back to the legislative branch.'

'I hope that Mr. Obama understands that the American people spoke very loudly during the election in November,' Aderholt jabbed, 'and want a new direction away from his liberal policies.'

Rep. Marino's bill is the weakest of the five, limiting its impact to DHS funds that Congress has appropriated for the agency.

The White House has said it can implement the president's immigration executive actions without new funds, however, relying on fees charged to people who apply for green cards and work permits.

Rep Yoho's bill is the least likely to get a hearing: He was among the 25 conservative GOP lawmakers who revolted against House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday, refusing to vote for his re-election to House leadership.

The speaker's office has already begun retaliating against the cabal of right-wingers, dropping two of them from the influential House Rules Committee, which Boehner controls.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3OBel5xzh

http://www.alipac.us/f12/alabama%92s...ctions-316577/

Wednesday, 07 January 2015
Warren Mass

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) is prepared to introduce legislation in the 114th Congress that would reverse President Obama’s executive action to defer deportations and grant work permits for up to five million illegal aliens. Other members of Congress have introduced bills to prohibit the use of funds to carry out the Obama executive actions granting amnesty to illegal aliens.

According to a report from Politico, which broke the story, the Aderholt bill would also reinstate Secure Communities, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation program that relies on partnership among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The Secure Communities program was discontinued on November 20, 2014, by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Among other parts of the Aderholt bill, as described by Politico:

• State and local government agencies would have to comply with so-called ICE detainers, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests local authorities to detain and individual for a day or two beyond when the individual would otherwise be released so that the individual’s custody may be transferred to ICE. Local agencies have increasingly refused to comply with the detainers, but Aderholt’s bill would deny Justice Department funding to agencies that refuse to honor them.

• The legislation would also limit the use of parole in immigration cases. Currently, an individual who is ineligible to enter the United States may be granted a parole by the Secretary of Homeland Security that allows them to legally enter the country. This provision of the law is only used for emergency, humanitarian, and public interest reasons. Aderholt wants the use of parole to be limited mostly to humanitarian cases.

• The bill also includes provisions geared to respond to last summer’s border crisis, when thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America illegally crossed our southern border.

In a Fiscal Year 2014 report issued by DHS, Secretary Jeh Johnson offered, as one excuse for declining deportations, “the increasing number of jurisdictions declining to honor ICE detainers, [which] also impacted DHS enforcement operations.”

In our article posted last October 8, we reported on a bill introduced in the New York City Council by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito that would “significantly restrict the conditions under which the NYPD complies with ... ICE detainer requests.” The bill was passed by the city council and signed into law by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on November 14.

Aderholt’s bill is presently at the House Office of the Legislative Counsel, which provides legislative drafting services to House members.

In the last Congress, Aderholt cosponsored H.R. 5142, the Protection of Children Act of 2014. The bill’s stated purpose was: “To amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to provide for the expedited removal of unaccompanied alien children who are not victims of a severe form of trafficking in persons and who do not have a fear of returning to their country of nationality or last habitual residence, and for other purposes.”

The William Wilberforce Act was passed to prevent victims of child trafficking from being automatically sent back to those who had effectively enslaved them. It provides for a hearing before an immigration judge to evaluate youthful illegal immigrants’ situations before possible deportation. However, because of the overwhelming flood of such young illegal aliens last year, the backlog in our immigration courts became enormous, sometimes extending for years.

H.R. 5142 was never brought to the floor for a vote.

Poltico reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with a daily House leadership meeting held this week, that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the third-ranking House Republican, discussed Aderholt’s planned legislation during the meeting.

At press time, there was still no text available for legislation introduced in the 114th Congress. (Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from the Government Printing Office a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate.) However. one piece of legislation introduced in the Senate on January 6, S.11, appears to have been drafted with President Obama’s recent executive actions in mind. Its description reads: “A bill to protect the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States by ensuring that the President takes care that the laws be faithfully executed, and for other purposes.”

S. 11 is sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is among its 18 co-sponsors. It has been sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Paul introduced a bill in the last Congress, the Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act, which was companion legislation to Rep. Ted Yoho’s bill of the same name (H.R. 5759) that passed the House of Representatives on December 4, 2014 on a 219-197 vote.

Because the bill was introduced shortly before the end of the 113th Congress, when the Senate was still controlled by Democrats, it had no chance of being brought up for a vote and was considered to be a symbolic gesture.

The Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act presented a Constitution-based argument against President Obama’s executive action on immigration, and was written as a direct response to Obama’s nationwide address on November 20 announcing that action.

In a release place on his Senate webpage, Paul explained:

This legislation would end President Obama’s executive action on immigration and restore the Congress’ constitutional role as the body to craft legislation. Article I of the Constitution places the legislative powers in Congress. The President does not have the power under the Constitution to rewrite immigration laws to exempt classes of people from a law that was passed by Congress and signed into law.

When the text of S.11 is received from the GPO in a day or two, it will interesting to see if it employs very similar language in making a strong case against Obama’s violation of the separation of powers.

We will also be looking for a Senate bill similar to the one Aderholt will soon introduce in the House.

Rep. Yoho just introduced new legislation on January 6, H.R. 38, “To prohibit the executive branch from exempting from removal categories of aliens considered under the immigration laws to be unlawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes.”

Another bill, introduced on January 6 by Rep. Tom Marino, (R-Pa.), H.R. 155, would “provide that no funds appropriated or otherwise made available may be used to implement, administer, carry out, or enforce certain memoranda related to immigration.”

Two other bills introduced on the January 6 would prohibit the use of funds to carry out the Obama executive actions granting amnesty to illegal aliens. H.R. 29, introduced by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), would “prohibit the use of funds for granting deferred action or other immigration relief to aliens not lawfully present in the United States.” And H.R. 31, introduced by Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.), would “prohibit the use of funds to implement the immigration policies set forth in the memoranda issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security on November 20, 2014, or the memoranda issued by the President on November 21, 2014.”

While Obama would undoubtedly veto any of these anti-executive action bills should they arrive on his desk, they would still serve to highlight his actions and make him accountable to the people and to history.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...mnesty-program