Time
By Alex Rogers
January 13, 2015
In
a series of votes this week, the House GOP will protest nearly every
major immigration executive action by President Obama in the past few
years, threatening millions
of immigrants who came to the country illegally with deportation.
The
plan has no chance of passage; enough Democratic and moderate
Republican senators have stated their opposition and the White House
threatened to veto the bill on Monday.
But a week after two-dozen Republicans voted to oust House Speaker John
Boehner from his perch, the House GOP leadership has earned a respite
of praise from conservatives and its rank-and-file for its approach in
opposing the President and funding the Department
of Homeland Security past its February 27 deadline.
“Clearly
this is where we want to be,” said Florida Republican Rep. Tom Rooney, a
member of the Appropriations Committee. “I want [Obama] to veto what we
send up there
so at least there is a clear distinction between what we think our
constituents want to do versus what the president’s willing to do. Who’s
responsibility is it now if DHS gets shut down? Is it the person who
just vetoed it or is it the Republicans in the
House who amended it to take his executive order out? I’d like to have
that fight.”
“I
voted for Boehner—and I haven’t been a big fan—but to his credit
they’ve been reaching out,” said Arizona Republican Rep. Matt Salmon,
noting that the 12 vote “toe-hold”
another candidate for Speaker received was not due to his conservatives
bona fides, but his message of inclusivity. “I think it’s symbolic of
where we’re going to be…I think it’s very emblematic of the fact that
leadership is actually listening to what we’re
saying.”
The
House GOP package, expected to be voted on Wednesday, would stop more
than Obama’s most recent immigration executive actions temporarily
delaying deportations for
up to five million undocumented immigrants, including parents of U.S.
citizen or legal permanent resident children for at least five years, by
rolling back 2011 memos that expanded what immigration officials should
consider in deferring deportations. Another
amendment would defund a 2012 program that provides similar protection to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought here illegally as children.
The
strategy goes way beyond what was expected—simply, directly challenging
the November White House actions—and is more likely to fail. But by
voting on the package this
week, the GOP leadership has given its members enough time to be on the
record with their ultimate pipedream before having to recalibrate. It
also may shift the House conservatives’ blame from their leadership to
conservatives in the Senate.
“This
is an opportunity for some of the people on the Senate side who are
itching for a fight, like [Texas Republican Senator] Ted Cruz and
others, to show what they can
do,” says Salmon. When reminded that it’s clear the new GOP-controlled
Senate can’t reach the requisite 60 votes, Rooney replied that it “kind
of ticks me off, to be honest with you.”
The
moves could further alienate Republicans from a Hispanic population
that had been frustrated with a president who delayed his promises last
year and oversaw a high
level of deportation in his first six-years. However, House and even
Senate Republicans have little political incentive to act on issues of
Hispanic importance: The party would “probably” have held onto the House
even if they lost every Hispanic voter in the
midterms, according to a New York Times election analysis, and still
have had a “real chance” to take over the Senate. Of course, it’s
another story in taking back the White House, which would allow
Republicans to roll back Obama’s executive actions with the
stroke of a pen.
Boehner
said on Tuesday morning that the debate over how to fund DHS is not
about immigration, but about the president “acting lawlessly” and
violating the “Constitution
itself.” He also declined to tip his hand on whether or not he would
allow a vote on a DHS funding bill without the aforementioned amendments
before the February deadline.
“Our
goal here is to fund the Department of Homeland Security,” said
Boehner. “Our second goal is to stop the president’s executive
overreach.”
Democrats
ripped the Republicans’ package as poor policy and politics, noting
that it was only a year ago when the House GOP announced its immigration
principles, including
legal residence and citizenship for children illegally brought to
American “through no fault of their own.”
“I
mean how do you go from that to this,” said Illinois Democrat Rep.
Louis Gutierrez, a vocal immigration reform advocate. “It is much more
extreme than anything I expected—and
I expect almost anything from Republicans when it comes to
immigration,” he added, before wondering aloud how “such a small band of
Republicans” could “jeopardize” the party’s national positioning for a
bill that wouldn’t become law.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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