Republicans turn up heat on Dems in DHS fight
The Republicans who control Congress have long pledged not to let the Department of Homeland Security shut down on their watch. But with its funding set to run dry in 17 days, and with the House and Senate still tied in knots over President Barack Obamaâs immigration policies, no signs are emerging of a solution to the DHS standoff â and Republicans are ramping up their efforts to blame Democrats. Story Continued Below Senate GOP leaders waved surrender on one front Tuesday, acknowledging they wonât be able to overcome the stubborn filibusters that Democrats have waged against Republican attempts to roll back Obamaâs immigration actions through the Homeland Security spending bill. Meanwhile, in a brief yet blistering interview, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) suggested that Senate Democrats deserved far more public blame for the impasse than they were getting. âThe Republicans â if there is a successful attack during a DHS shutdown â we should build a number of coffins outside each Democratic office and say, âYou are responsible for these dead Americans,ââ Kirk said Tuesday. Kirk also told POLITICO: âIn the end, eventually the lapdog media â of which you guys are probably all members of â is unable to call it for what it is: just pure politics to try to hurt the Republicans. I think Democrats mistakenly feel a shutdown is a scenario which advantages them.â Other Republicans tried to deflect the blame from their party, though using less dramatic language. âThe Democrats are filibustering it,â Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said. âI donât know how we get blamed for that this time.â Short of a stopgap funding measure that seemingly no one wants â in either the Capitol or the administration â the GOP-led Congress remains short on specific ideas for avoiding a funding lapse that would risk furloughing tens of thousands of DHS workers and forcing 200,000 more Homeland Security personnel to work without pay. Instead, the $39.7 billion Homeland Security bill has become a legislative hot potato between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who looked at each other to make the next move. McConnell said Tuesday that the DHS ball was in the House Republicansâ court â telling reporters that his chamber was âclearly stuckâ because of repeated Democratic filibusters to the bill the House passed last month. That bill would roll back a series of Obamaâs directives on immigration dating back to 2011. âWe canât get on it, we canât offer amendments to it,â McConnell said of the legislation. âAnd the next step is obviously up to the House.â His top deputy, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), added: âWeâre trying, weâve done the best we can. At some point, the arithmetic is reality.â Senate Republicans such as Hatch and Jeff Flake of Arizona also said the House would have to come up with a new option that could get 60 votes in the Senate. But House Republicans have repeatedly said that their chamber has done its job and that itâs up to senators to find the requisite Democratic support to clear the must-pass funding bill. Republicans have tried to pressure a handful of Senate Democrats who opposed Obamaâs unilateral immigration actions to join their side, but so far those moderate Democrats have showed no signs of budging. âNow, the pressure is on Senate Democrats who claim to oppose the presidentâs action, but are filibustering a bill to stop it,â Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Tuesday. âUntil there is some signal from those Senate Democrats what would break their filibuster, thereâs little point in additional House action.â Some senators suggested that a short-term funding bill for Homeland Security would be the likely endgame, although McConnell declined to say whether that was how the DHS fight would end. Some House Republicans and leadership aides privately have mulled a strategy in which the Senate would pass a DHS bill without immigration riders, then send it back to the House, which could amend it. Democrats could still block the measure in the Senate, and Obama would still threaten to veto it, but it would at least show some forward movement. The parties donât disagree much on the funding provisions of the DHS bill, which Democrats and Republicans negotiated late last year. But the House-passed amendments aimed at gutting Obamaâs executive actions on immigration have prompted the biggest partisan fight in the new GOP-led Congress. Obamaâs actions could prevent deportations for nearly 5 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and allow them to work here lawfully. The congressional battle comes as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that will implement the key part of Obamaâs actions, prepares to start taking applications for the first phase of the new policy next week. Novemberâs actions expanded the 2012 administration directive protecting so-called Dreamers â immigrants who came here illegally as children â and USCIS will start accepting applicants for that part on Feb. 18. Democrats are demanding a clean DHS bill free of immigration provisions, but several senior House Republican aides were skeptical that such legislation could pass the GOP-led House, even if carried mostly on Democratic votes. Still, Democrats indicated that few options exist for a way out of the quagmire short of a clean funding bill for the rest of the fiscal year. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the prospect of a short-term continuing resolution âvery, very bad,â and Democrats listed several ways a stopgap bill would hamper DHS â reasons similar to those cited by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was on the Hill on Tuesday. But Senate Democratic leaders also declined to flatly rule out a stopgap spending bill as a viable â and perhaps ultimate â option. âJeh Johnson described it this way: Itâs like going on a 300-mile trip on a five-gallon tank of gas,â Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. âIt just doesnât work. So we much prefer to do full funding.â Johnson, who has frequently been on the Hill in recent days to urge lawmakers on funding for his department, stressed that point again. Earlier Tuesday, Johnson issued a statement that warned there would be no money to pay for enhanced border-security efforts if Congress resorts to a stopgap bill â saying DHS would be âconstrainedâ by a short-term bill from improving security along the nationâs southwestern border and maintaining the boost in resources to deal with the consequences of last summerâs border crisis. In a brief gaggle with reporters after meetings on Capitol Hill, Johnson declined to say whether he would advise Obama to veto a short-term bill for his department. âWe need a fully-funded appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and we need it real soon,â Johnson told reporters. âAs long as weâre on a CR, there are things that we just cannot do.â John Bresnahan contributed to this report.