With only three working days before the House’s August recess is set to begin, GOP leaders are under pressure form their rank and file to tackle the border crisis in some way. “Members are none too eager to head home for a five-week recess having accomplished nothing, especially after blasting Obama for failing to visit the region during a fundraising jaunt through Texas.” The Hill reports, House GOP scales back border bill in scramble for conservative support:
House Republican appropriators are scaling down an emergency funding bill to address the surge of child immigrants crossing the border.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) is in the process of drafting limited legislation that would provide less than $1 billion in funds, and through only Sept. 30, aides said.
That’s a far cry from the $3.7 billion requested by the White House, and less than half the amount in $2.7 billion bill Senate Democrats have written.
The differences suggest it will be tough to get a final bill to President Obama’s desk, and that Republican leaders are more focused on winning approval from House conservatives to ensure a bill is approved by the lower chamber.
As recently as last week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the legislation would likely provide about $1.5 billion and last through the end of 2014.
Republicans are making the changes to try to win over conservatives reluctant to give the Obama administration any new funding. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure.
The last-minute tweaks open what could be a frantic final week on the border bill before lawmakers leave town.
Under House Republicans’ own rules, legislation must be publicly available for at least three calendar days before a floor vote. That means a bill must be released by Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. at the latest for a vote by Thursday, the last day the House is scheduled to be in session.
House GOP leaders could break the rule, but that might spark disapproval from conservatives who are wary of bringing up a bill to address the surge of unaccompanied child minors crossing the border in the first place. Leadership would likely get heat from members who want sufficient time to review a lengthy appropriations bill.
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GOP leaders held their cards close to the vest on Monday. A spokesman for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who takes over as majority leader at the end of the week, said conversations about legislation continued through the weekend. But congressional aides would not offer a timeframe of when the House GOP bill might be released.
While the House bill would be much smaller than what Obama requested, the shortened timeframe could still address the more immediate aspects of the child migrant issue.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it expects Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run out of money in mid-August. It has projected the same for Customs and Border Protection by mid-September.
The House bill would ensure those department get immediate funding.
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But that won’t be easy, given the reluctance some Republicans will have in voting for any border bill.
From the beginning, a conservative bloc of lawmakers has urged leadership to ignore Obama’s funding request and simply pass a resolution underscoring their opinion that the president encouraged children to come to the U.S. with lax immigration policies, and that the administration has the power already to address the matter.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) introduced a resolution to do just that Friday afternoon. If passed, the nonbinding resolution would express the sense of the House that the president’s immigration policies have effectively “enticed” children to migrate from Central America, under the belief they would be free to stay if they made it over the border.
The resolution only had one cosponsor as of Monday. If that number grows, it could be an indication that Republicans will have trouble pulling enough support for new funding, even when paired with policy changes to strengthen the border.
Meanwhile, nearly all Democrats have remained resolute in opposing the GOP bill.
Opposition among Democrats to changing a 2008 human trafficking law many Republicans blame for the influx of immigrant children has hardened. While Republicans are confident some Democrats will come around to the bill if it reaches the floor, so far only a sparse handful of Democrats have said they are even considering supporting it.
The modern-day Tea-Publican Party is all about post-policy nihilism. They have no interest or desire to actually address public policy concerns in any meaningful or effective manner. Everything they do is solely designed to provide talking points for the GOPropagandists of the conservative media entertainment complex. This is what happens when a political party becomes captive to unelected and unaccountable media propagandists. The only way to stop this insanity is to kick Tea-Publicans out of office.
Kicking Arizona’s Trent Franks to the curb would be an awesome start.
h/t Arizona Republic photo
President Obama should grant amnesty to all especially the children and then ask the latino community to come out and vote in 2014 to protect amnesty.