House Conservatives Want Assurance from Boehner That He'll 'Use Power of Purse' on Immigration

A group of House conservatives is urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to “respect the will of the people by using the power of the purse to rein in the president’s actions” on immigration.

With a Feb. 27 expiration date for Department of Homeland Security funding, Republicans are moving forward with a bill from Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) to defund the executive orders and remove President Obama’s discretion in granting work permits and federal benefits outlined in the order.

House conservatives want Boehner’s assurance that he’ll see it through.

The Friday letter, led by Reps. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) and Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), references leadership’s block of Mulvaney’s cromnibus amendment to defund the immigration executive actions at the end of the 113th Congress. In December, House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) denied a vote on the amendment, saying that they were running out of time and couldn’t add anything “extraneous” to the spending bill.

The conservatives wrote that they were told the spending bill wasn’t “the right vehicle,” but were “guaranteed by Leadership that the House would stand its ground against the President’s unconstitutional actions in January.”

“Now we ask that Leadership honor their commitment, and bring the FY2015 Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill to the floor, with language removing all available funding streams to implement the President’s executive action,” the letter states.

“We all agree that Congress must take steps to address our broken immigration system. But the crisis facing the House isn’t about immigration; it is about defending the separation of powers and the rule of law. As established by our founding fathers in the Constitution, only Congress has the power to establish the rule of naturalization, make, or change the laws. These changes cannot be determined at the President’s sole discretion. Therefore it is incumbent on Congress to honor the Constitution, and respect the will of the people, by using the power of the purse to rein in the President’s actions.”

The 56 conservatives who signed the letter “respectfully request that the House stand firm in its efforts to oppose the President’s executive action and place comprehensive restrictions on the funding for its implementation as soon as possible in the 114^th Congress.”

The lawmakers have asked Boehner to give them a prompt response.