The Hill
By Cristina Marcos
June 3, 2015
The
House on Wednesday endorsed a proposal to block the Obama
administration from further pursuing its legal defense of the
president’s executive actions to shield illegal
immigrants from deportation.
Rep.
Steve King’s (R-Iowa) amendment to the annual funding bill for the
Justice Department passed on a party-line 222-204 vote. Nineteen
Republicans voted with all Democrats
in opposition.
King,
one of the most vocal opponents of illegal immigration, said his
amendment would prevent the Obama administration from using taxpayer
dollars to defend what he described
as its “unconstitutional executive amnesty position.”
“A
lot of money has been spent and wasted in an attempt to, let’s say —
the gracious way to say it would be to stretch the Constitution beyond
any bounds that it had been
stretched before,” King said.
Twenty-six
states, led by Texas, are suing the Obama administration to challenge
the constitutionality of the executive actions. A Texas district court
judge in February
issued a preliminary injunction to temporarily freeze the immigration
executive actions announced by President Obama after the November
midterm elections.
Last
week, a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied
the Obama administration an emergency request to lift the hold on the
executive actions. The
court will hear oral arguments in July in New Orleans to appeal the
Texas judge’s decision.
Democrats
dismissed King’s proposal as circumventing due process. Rep. Chaka
Fattah (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations
subcommittee overseeing the Justice
Department, maintained that President Obama acted within his
constitutional authority.
“It is unfair for us to deny the executive branch an opportunity to put forth its arguments in court,” Fattah said.
The Pennsylvania Democrat noted that the legal process takes time, saying, “the wheels of justice grind slowly.”
King
offered a second amendment, adopted by voice vote, that would prohibit
the use of funds to negotiate immigrant visas as part of a trade
agreement. The wide-ranging
appropriations measure also includes funding for the Commerce
Department.
Obama
administration officials and the House Ways and Means Committee have
maintained that the Asia-Pacific trade deal would not impact U.S.
immigration policy. King maintained
that his amendment should consequently be easy for supporters of
President Obama’s trade agenda to endorse.
“It
has been an important issue to maintain the separation of immigration
policy and the Congress from the executive branch negotiations in
trade,” King said.
Fattah suggested prohibiting discussion of a topic over the course of international trade negotiations would be unrealistic.
“I
may not support what he negotiates, but to say you can’t even discuss
something in a negotiation I think is unfortunate,” Fattah said.
The
House is expected to take up legislation in the next few weeks to grant
President Obama “fast-track” authority to negotiate trade deals by
preventing Congress from
amending them.
Wednesday’s
votes marked the second time in recent weeks the House has voted on
immigration policy. House Republicans stripped a provision in the annual
defense authorization
last month that would have edged toward allowing illegal immigrants to
enlist in the military.
The
19 Republicans who voted against the amendment were primarily centrists
and lawmakers who represent large Hispanic populations.
They
were Reps. Mike Coffman (Colo.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Jeff Denham
(Calif.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Bob Dold (Ill.), Dan Donovan (N.Y.),
Chris Gibson (N.Y.),
Richard Hanna (N.Y.), Joe Heck (Nev.), Bill Johnson (Ohio), David Jolly
(Fla.), John Katko (N.Y.), Peter King (N.Y.), Tom MacArthur (N.J.),
Martha McSally (Ariz.), Devin Nunes (Calif.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
(Fla.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and David Valadao (Calif.).
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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