How can the Republican party block the president’s executive action on immigration without shutting the government down?
According to The Hill, their new plan is to fund every part of the government except those that may be involved in the president’s actions.
Under one option, the GOP would fund the entire government except for agencies carrying out Obama’s order, which is expected to provide legal status to millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. [...]
“We can pass all of the bills that have nothing to do with his executive order. That goes through controversy-free. When we do the other bill, it doesn’t include the funding for his executive action,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who is leading the charge for defunding the order.
The agencies that are responsible for carrying out the president’s orders on immigration include, but are not limited to, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
We’ve arrived at a point in time where the Republican party would consider defunding the DHS and DOJ, among other agencies that handle security, just to stop the president from issuing more work permits.
Regardless of the motive, defunding key elements of our national security infrastructure would have been an unspeakable heresy in previous times.
The president would have no reason to a sign a bill that doesn’t fund the entire government together. And keep in mind that Democrats still control the Senate as of this moment. Things could become very ugly over the next two years and the president’s veto pen could be very busy.
