New York Times
By Ashley Parker
November 21, 2014
WASHINGTON
— Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that President Obama was
“damaging the presidency itself” by using his executive authority to
prevent the deportation of millions of undocumented
immigrants.
Mr. Boehner said that the House would act to counter the president, but he declined to be specific.
“With
this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any
chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek,” Mr.
Boehner told reporters. “And as I told him yesterday,
he’s damaging the presidency itself.”
Mr.
Obama, in his address to the nation Thursday night, all but dared
congressional Republicans to act — either by passing their own
immigration legislation to trump his executive action or
by challenging him in a way that could be politically disastrous for
the Republican brand.
Mr.
Obama’s decision to act unilaterally on immigration — allowing up to
five million undocumented immigrants to remain in the country and work
legally without threat of deportation — came
after months of congressional gridlock, in which a broad immigration
overhaul that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support
died in the Republican-controlled House.
“Pass a bill,” Mr. Obama bluntly told Republicans.
But
the president’s executive action — and call for congressional action —
thrust Republicans into a political challenge of their own. In the
lead-up to his announcement and in the hours after,
Republicans struggled to balance fighting what they view as an abuse of
presidential power while still offering a carefully moderated response
that does not damage the party’s standing with Latino voters, the
nation’s fastest-growing minority, or imperil its
governing agenda next year, when it controls both chambers.
So
Republicans focused their fury on the president, making clear their
anger and frustration at what they call “executive amnesty.”
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority
leader, warned against the president’s “brazen power grab.”
Representative
Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee, said that the president’s actions were not only
unconstitutional but also “a threat
to our democracy,” and promised to “use every tool at my disposal to
stop the president’s unconstitutional actions from being implemented.”
And
Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, a longtime outspoken
opponent of a broad immigration overhaul, said in a phone interview that
Congress should fight back by funding all of
the government except those agencies carrying out the president’s
order.
In
a prime-time speech, President Obama announced a series of executive
actions to grant work permits and temporary reprieves from deportation
to as many as five million undocumented immigrants.
“The
president is the one who is acting provocatively, not the Congress,”
Mr. Sessions said. “The last thing this Congress wants to do is have
this kind of fight, but at some point the institution
has to defend itself.”
Nonetheless,
Republican leaders have also warned their members against embarking on a
strategy that could lead to a government shutdown, as well as
cautioning them against talking about impeaching
the president.
“Leadership
in both the House and the Senate have been clear that talk of
impeachment, talk of a shutdown, is not productive, doesn’t solve the
problem,” said Pat Tiberi, Republican of Ohio,
a close ally of Mr. Boehner. But Mr. Tiberi also blamed the White House
for playing politics with a serious issue, saying: “What did the
president do? He pulled the pin on the grenade two weeks after the
election, as our leadership was trying to extend the
olive branch of working together.”
Not
every Republican, however, is displaying the preferred Republican
message of restraint. Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama,
has suggested that, depending on what exactly Mr.
Obama undertakes, everything from impeachment to prison could be on the
table. And Representative Steve King — an outspoken opponent of an
immigration overhaul who headed to the southern border on Friday with
Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of
Minnesota — said censuring the president or even shutting down the
government were other possible options.
After
Democrats and the White House blamed congressional Republicans for the
16-day government shutdown over the Affordable Care Act last year, Mr.
King said, “The punishment for that apparently
was 15 new seats in the House and winning the majority in the Senate,
so I can handle that kind of punishment.”
Republicans
are still trying to coalesce around the best way to cut off funding for
Mr. Obama’s executive action without shutting down the government. With
almost all of them departing town
for the Thanksgiving recess, no final decisions will be made until they
return.
But
some options are already percolating. Representative Hal Rogers of
Kentucky, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has
suggested passing a broad spending bill to fund the
government by its Dec. 11 deadline, and then rescinding just the funds
for the president's proposed action. Another option would be to pass
most of the spending bill except for the funding for the agencies that
handle immigration.
However,
Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with carrying
out most of the president’s executive action, is not funded through the
appropriations process and instead relies
on the revenue it generates through fees attached to immigration
applications.
Republicans
are also eyeing the whole slate of the administration’s nominations as
possible leverage, from ambassadors to high-ranking executive branch
employees to judicial candidates. Loretta
E. Lynch, the president’s pick to replace Eric H. Holder Jr. as
attorney general, could be a prime candidate.
Congressional
Democrats were largely united behind the president. Some said that they
wished the executive action went further, but that they recognized the
legal limits, and also realized
that Mr. Obama’s announcement was just a first step. Any real change,
they say, must come through congressional legislation.
“President
Obama is doing what he can within his well-established constitutional
authority, but nothing replaces Congress acting on comprehensive
immigration reform,” Senator Harry Reid of
Nevada, the majority leader, said in a statement Thursday evening. “So
today, while I thank President Obama for his decisive action, I ask my
Republican colleagues to put their partisan politics aside and focus
their efforts on passing legislation that will
permanently fix our broken immigration system. I will continue to fight
until we make immigration reform a reality.”
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