The House voted yesterday to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the next fiscal year with a bill that included five amendments blocking President Obama’s immigration executive orders.
The vote was 236-191, with two Democrats voting for the bill — Reps. Mike Ashford (D-Ohio) and Collin Peterson (D-N.D.) — and 10 Republicans voting against it.
Those were Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Bob Dold (R-Ill.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Tom Massie (R-Ky.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), and David Valadao (R-Calif.).
“While I didn’t support the president’s choice to act unilaterally in 2012, this singular group has unfortunately become the scapegoat for my colleagues’ attempt to rectify President Obama’s egregious actions against democracy,” Denham wrote in a Roll Call op-ed. “I regret the insistence of making this class of immigrants pay for the President’s wrongful acts. President Obama made his decision personally and with full mental assent. Our DREAMers, in being pulled across our border, did neither.”
“President Obama has said that any executive action would be ‘very difficult to defend legally,’ and yet we have seen him use such power not once, but twice in as many months,” Diaz-Balart said in a statement after the vote. “It is evident that the only permanent and legal way to solve our country’s broken immigration system is for Congress to pass legislation that actually has a chance of becoming law and deals with the issue. As I have done in the past, I am working with my colleagues in the 114th Congress to find a solution that strengthens our borders, respects the rule of law, treats those living in the shadows in a humane manner, modernizes our visa system, and bolsters the economy. It’s time for President Obama to respect the powers of the United States Congress as they are written in the laws of our great nation.”
Coffman said his party needs “to stop just saying what we are against and start saying what we are for when it comes to fixing our broken immigration system.”
“Under the DACA amendment that passed, young people who were taken to this country as children, who grew up here, went to school here, and often know of no other country but the United States, would not be allowed to renew their status and would face deportation,” the Colorado congressman said. “We should have had an opportunity to pass a version of the DACA program into law. Moving forward, immigration reform should be about securing our borders, growing our economy and keeping families together and we need to do it all the constitutional way – through Congress.”
Curbelo, a freshman in the 114th Congress, told Fox that GOPs “have to stop reacting to the president and we have to start leading.”
“And if we want to take over control over country’s immigration laws and put the authority to right immigration policy back in the United States Congress, what we have to do is pass a series of bills that will overhaul our nation’s immigration policy,” he said. “Doing it through the appropriations process, I don’t think makes sense. And that’s why I voted against it because I want Congress to get serious about overhauling our nation’s immigration laws and we did not do that today.”
Curbelo added that House leadership was “very respectful” of his position.
“And they know that I didn’t go to Washington to follow anyone’s orders but the wishes and the desires of my constituents,” he said.
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