House GOP plots to counter Obama’s immigration action but avoid shutdown

Lawmakers resumed sparring over the president’s recently announced executive actions on immigration Tuesday as they came back from Thanksgiving recess, with House Republicans formulating a preliminary plan to voice their displeasure with what they have characterized as an executive fiat.

Hose Speaker John Boehner is reported to have presented a two-pronged approach to the GOP conference in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.

First, Republican leaders hope to vote on a resolution, sponsored by Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., that would declare that President Barack Obama overstepped his authority in issuing the executive action. The move would be largely symbolic — a mechanism for Republicans to vent their frustrations — as it is highly unlikely to be taken up by the still Democratic-controlled Senate.

Then, to avoid a shutdown when the current government funding bill expires on Dec. 11, Republicans would vote on legislation that would finance most government agencies and functions through September 2015 but fund the Department of Homeland Security — one of the primary agencies responsible for enforcing immigration law — only through early next year, giving the party room to negotiate come January, when the GOP will control of the majority of seats in Congress. 

After the meeting, Boehner told reporters that no final decisions had been made.

“Frankly, we have limited options and limited abilities to deal with it directly,” Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. “That's why we’re continuing to talk to our members. We have not made decisions about how we’re going to proceed, but we are in fact going to proceed.”

Meanwhile, legislators continued to vigorously debate the president’s decision to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, with the battle lines drawn in partisan fashion.

Republicans repeatedly labeled the move an unconstitutional power grab.

“Regardless of where you stand on this issue, there is a right way to do this, and there is a wrong way. And unfortunately the president has taken the wrong way,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, during a morning hearing organized by Republicans titled Impact of Presidential Amnesty on Border Security. “In addition, the president has risked breaking something much more fundamental — our democratic process,” he said.

Democrats, echoing what the president has said in recent weeks, insisted that Obama was well within his legal authority to act unilaterally and dared the GOP to pass its own bill.

“If you do not like what the president of the United States has done, it is your responsibility to offer us an alternative, other than to demonize and criminalize our immigrant community,” said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., at a press conference organized by immigration advocates. He urged activists to start preparing eligible immigrants for the application process. “How do you argue against 5 million that are undocumented coming and registering with the government, doing an exhaustive background check and only after doing that background check and being given a clean bill of health, getting a work permit?”

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, one of the chief architects of the executive actions, was summoned to Capitol Hill Tuesday morning to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee and defend the administration’s moves.

“I'm satisfied as a lawyer myself and the person who has to come here and defend these actions that what we have done is well within our existing legal authority," he said.

Johnson warned that the short-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security pushed by House Republicans was “a very bad idea.”

“We've got some homeland security priorities that need to be funded now,” he told the committee. “I am urging that we act on our current appropriations request for the purpose and sake of border security and homeland security.”

On Tuesday afternoon, a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee examining the constitutionality of the president’s actions was repeatedly interrupted by protesters in favor of the deferred action program as they urged Republicans not to obstruct the plan. 

“I’ve been in this country 30 years, man. This is an injustice,” said one protester.

Another woman, standing with her children, cried, “We followed the rules. Please. My children were born here too,” before being escorted away by police.

Outside the hearing room, activists chanted, “Sí se puede.”