Immigration ruling hardens lines in DHS fight
A Texas judgeâs rejection of President Barack Obamaâs immigration actions has strengthened conservativesâ resolve to use the Department of Homeland Security funding bill to oppose his moves â potentially complicating efforts for a quick end to the partisan standoff just 10 days before the clock runs out. Rather than defusing the conflict on Capitol Hill by making it moot, conservative lawmakers and senior aides said Tuesday, the ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen makes it even clearer that Congress cannot allow Obamaâs actions to stand. âThe president has acted unconstitutionally, and it is the president â not Congress â who must back down,â said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), an immigration hard-liner. Story Continued Below Instead, Republicans said, itâs the Senate Democrats who need to give in by allowing a vote on a House-passed DHS bill that would block the presidentâs efforts to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. âThis court ruling certainly does provide us with an important, I think, a helpful argument to fund everything but what a federal district court has ruled as unlawful or unconstitutional,â Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a vulnerable Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. âWe all want to keep this nation safe and secure, so letâs do that. Letâs not fund whatâs in dispute.â âThis gives momentum to the position that weâve taken and the majority of Americans have [taken] that what the president did is wrong,â said conservative Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. He added, âIt just helps our case all the more.â But Democrats showed no signs of conceding, and circulated new CNN/ORC poll results showing that 53 percent of voters would blame Republicans if the department shuts down, compared with 30 percent who would point the finger at Obama. Two conservative Democrats â Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota â said through aides Tuesday that they would continue to stick with the Senate Democratic position of demanding a âcleanâ spending bill free of immigration riders. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that âregardless of the outcomeâ of the legal battle, âDemocrats remain united in our belief that funding for the Department of Homeland Security should not be used as ransom by Republicans, period.â Hanenâs decision on Monday temporarily halted the implementation of a move Obama announced in November, which was aimed at deferring deportation of roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants and letting them obtain work permits. Homeland Securityâs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had intended to begin accepting applications Wednesday, but administration officials said Tuesday that theyâre putting those plans on hold while they appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Hanenâs ruling, in a lawsuit brought by 26 states including Texas, said Obama lacks the authority to carry out his initiative and is âcreating laws from scratch.â The ruling comes at a pivotal time on Capitol Hill. In response to the presidentâs move, House Republicans loaded a must-pass $39 billion DHS funding bill with a rider that would block Obamaâs November policy, as well his 2012 action that deferred deportations of immigrants brought to the country illegally at a young age. Hanenâs ruling does not affect the 2012 policy. But the House bill has hit a wall in the Senate, where the GOP controls 54 seats but needs 60 to overcome a filibuster. Democrats have three times blocked debate from starting, and they are expected to filibuster the bill once again when the Senate reconvenes next week after its Presidents Day recess. With DHS funding set to run out after Feb. 27, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) face a major decision that could define their stewardship of Congress less than two months into the new session: They can take the fight to the brink and hope the public blames Democrats for closing down an agency thatâs vital to national security during a time of growing threats from abroad. Or they can give Democrats and the White House a clean spending bill, as either a long- or short-term extension of funding for the department â but that would prompt a furious outcry from the right. âCongress, so threatened, can never acquiesce to this action by funding it,â Sessions said in a statement. McConnell and Boehner gave little indication Tuesday of their next steps â but both blasted Senate Democrats for standing in the way of the GOP bill. âHopefully, Senate Democrats who claim to oppose this executive overreach will now let the Senate begin debate on a bill to fund the Homeland Security Department,â Boehner said. Still, Democrats took solace in the poll numbers. After the last government-wide shutdown, in October 2013, the GOP incurred a sharp political backlash and weeks of internal backbiting, a situation McConnell has promised to avoid in the new Republican-led Senate. Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who faces a potentially tough reelection next year, believes Democrats will incur the political backlash this time given their refusal to even debate the controversial policy. Thatâs a significant break from another endangered Republican senator, Mark Kirk of Illinois, who is calling on his leadership to drop the immigration riders. Johnson added that during the 2013 shutdown, just 13 percent of DHS employees were furloughed, while the rest were considered âessentialâ and required to report to work, though they temporarily did not receive pay. âI donât want to see that happen, but we do need to correct the rhetoric from the standpoint of a shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security is not going to shut down,â Johnson said. Leadership aides in both chambers said itâs too early to speculate on how the court ruling may affect the dynamics on the Hill. The appellate court could stay Hanenâs ruling and effectively allow the policy to move forward pending the appeal. But if it doesnât, Obamaâs policy may be indefinitely halted â allowing Republicans who are are nervous about a shutdown to argue that Congress should fund the department since the presidentâs critics appear to be winning in the courts. Either way, it will be a week before Republicans in either chamber are all in the same room, just days before they need to make a final decision. A unified strategy has been elusive in recent days as Boehner and McConnell each have called on the otherâs chamber to take the next step. One fallback idea that has picked up steam in GOP circles â winning the backing of both moderate Maine Sen. Susan Collins and conservative Texas Sen. Ted Cruz â would be to pass a bill that targets only Obamaâs November immigration action and doesnât attack his 2012 directive. That proposal could pick up more momentum after Hanen limited his court order to the 2014 action. âI think if you took the 2012 order out, that would be the strongest position,â said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). But Democrats insist theyâll accept no bill short of a clean funding package. Republicans have been watching the lawsuit closely as prospects for the Houseâs DHS bill diminish. The situation is frustrating some senior GOP lawmakers, because itâs consuming valuable legislative time and because the new GOP-controlled Congress was hoping to put brinkmanship and deadline-driven crises behind it. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the GOP majority whip, said Tuesday that the court victory âis an important one, but the fight to reverse the presidentâs unconstitutional overreach is not over.â But Cornyn has vowed repeatedly to avoid a shutdown and fund the department. And if the Republican leadership acquiesces to Democrats, the conservative base and lawmakers from the partyâs right flank are bound to push back â especially in light of Mondayâs ruling. âIt just confirms everything weâve been saying,â Jordan, the conservative House member, said of Hanenâs ruling. âIt doesnât do anything but help us with the position weâve taken because the position weâve taken is the right one. Weâll keep pushing.â Lauren French contributed to this report.