The president invited six DREAMers – undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children – to the White House this week to steer focus toward a popular executive measure that allows young people to temporarily live and work in the United States without the fear of being deported. Nearly 600,000 DREAMers have taken advantage of the program since it began in 2012, and starting in two weeks, thousands more will likely qualify under the president’s latest round of executive actions.
Congressional Republicans have sought to block the executive measures, arguing that Obama has overstepped his authority. House Speaker John Boehner has already said he may sue the president over the unilateral actions. House Republicans took it a step further by tacking on a set of toxic amendments to the crucial DHS funding that would strip fees from being allocated to the executive actions and prevent DREAMers from renewing their applications under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Democrats are demanding for their counterparts in Congress to introduce a clean DHS spending bill that drops the poison amendments.
“There are only 23 days left until the Department of Homeland Security shuts down,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at her weekly briefing Thursday, adding that Congress will be in session for only eight of those days. “We have to pass a clean homeland security bill, and we have to do it immediately.”
The Republican strategy to target the immigration actions through a bill to fund the nation’s domestic security interests has lawmakers playing with fire for a looming agency shutdown. Prominent Republicans even publicly criticized the majority leader’s decision to call for additional votes, a move that eats up time with a symbolic effort that is all but guaranteed to fail.
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“Is that the definition of insanity? Voting on the same bill over and over again?” Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said to reporters Wednesday.
Another Arizona Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake, said he did not feel the DHS funding bill was the proper venue to address qualms with the president’s executive actions, National Journal reported.
“My preference has always been to address Obama’s action with legislation,” Flake said. “I think we see the end of this movie.”