House Deportation Tea-Publicans vote to defund DACA Program

The Tea-Publicans in the TanMan’s House today voted to defund the DACA Program — the Citizenship and Immigration Services is not funded through congressional appropriations, but rather through user fees; this bill attempts to declare these fees cannot be used — including an amendment aimed at deporting innocent DREAMers as well, because Tea-Publicans just cannot contain their visceral hatred for people breathing while brown. The modern day GOP is the new anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party.

The Hill reports, House passes bill to defund Obama’s immigration orders:

The House voted Wednesday to block funding for President Obama’s immigration orders, firing the first shot in a high-stakes battle over deferred deportations for the millions of people who are in the country illegally.

The measure passed in a 236-191 vote, with 10 Republicans voting against it and two Democrats voting in favor.

Democrats rallied against the bill, which would fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through September, after Republicans adopted a series of contentious amendments that take aim at facets of Obama’s immigration policy.

One of the amendments would choke off funding for Obama’s executive action announced in November, which would allow some illegal immigrants to stay in the country and obtain work permits.

A second amendment would halt the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA), which lifts deportation for some illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children.

The defunding amendment was adopted in a 237-190 vote, with seven Republicans voting no, while the DACA amendment was approved 218-209, with 26 Republicans defecting.

House Democrats were unified in opposition to both provisions.

The 10 Republican no votes on the final legislation came from Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Mike Coffman (Colo.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Jeff Denham (Calif.), Mario Díaz-Balart (Fla.), Robert Dold (Ill.), Renee Ellmers (N.C.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.) and David Valadao (Calif.).

The two Democrats voting in favor were Reps. Brad Ashford (Neb.) and Collin Peterson (Minn.).

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Three other amendments that were folded into the spending bill would prioritize deportation for illegal immigrants convicted of sexual abuse and domestic violence; promote the hiring of U.S. citizens above those who are in the country illegally, and express the sense of Congress the administration should “stop putting the interest of immigrants who worked within the legal framework to come to the US behind those who came here illegally.”

All five amendments were attached to a nearly $40 billion bill that would fund DHS through September. Congress must fund the department by Feb. 27 or it could shut down.

House Republicans say they are acting well ahead of the deadline to give the Republican Senate enough time to consider the package. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the upper chamber would focus on the bill in February, which could lead to a showdown with Democrats at the eleventh hour.

The White House has already promised that President Obama would veto the DHS bill if “ideological provisions” were tied to it.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused Republicans of “picking an unnecessary political fight” and vowed the House bill “will not pass the Senate.”

“Tearing families apart does nothing to secure our borders, fix our broken immigration system or strengthen our economy. This is not a game and it is time for Republicans to take their responsibility to govern seriously, instead of playing to the most extreme voices in their party.”

After Wednesday’s vote, House Republicans headed out of Washington to attend a joint retreat with Senate Republicans in Hershey, Pa., where the party’s next moves on immigration are likely to be a matter of fierce debate.

Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) noted that House Republican leaders had presented a set of immigration reform principles for a potential legislative overhaul at their retreat just one year ago.

“Wow. Time flies when you’re playing politics with people’s lives,” Gutiérrez said. “What are the headlines today? Behold the Republican immigration strategy, mass deportation.”

Gutiérrez said the amendments to undo President Obama’s actions would ultimately hurt Republicans in the long run.

“The fruits of your action today will only cause anger and outrage and the mobilization of an immigrant community throughout this nation that will be the death nail to the future of your party as an institution,” Gutiérrez said.

As I warned you last year when she supported the “no compromise” immigration bill by Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Martha McSally is a ‘Deportation Republican’. Her Tea Party slip is showing in her statements to the Arizona Daily Star. Local congressional delegation split on key House vote:

McSally said she was pleased the $39.7 billion in discretionary funding for DHS was approved, noting it was Obama’s unilateral actions that forced the Republicans to pass the legislation.

That is bullshit. House Tea-Publicans pulled the DHS funding out of the spending bills last fall to set up this fight over the President’s executive orders. Don’t lie to me lady, I know the subject matter way better than you do.

“By refusing to work with Congress and acting alone on immigration, the President has set a dangerous precedent that threatens the very Constitutional principles and separation of powers on which our country is founded. It’s critical that Congress, as the direct representation of the people, stand up for those principles,” McSally said. “Going forward, our focus needs to be on securing our border and revamping the legal immigration system so it is consistent with our economic needs and provides a way for people who want to come here to work hard and contribute a simple, fast, and legal way to do so.”

More bullshit. It is the Tea-Publicans in the House who acted in bad faith by scuttling the Senate Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill last year that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, and the support of the president. It was House Tea-Publicans who failed to work with everyone else.

I know McSally doesn’t read anything but the daily talking points her handlers give her, but I have already explained some time ago that the president’s executive orders are legal and constitutional. Legal basis for Executive Orders on immigration. Tea-Publicans are fabricating a “constitutional crisis” in their own twisted minds because many of them have the ulterior motive of wanting to impeach the president, and it’s a great fundraising talking point in their newsletters to conservative rubes. McSally is not standing up for anything but hyperbolic right-wing talking points. She knows nothing.

Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick characterized McSally’s cynical vote the best:

Kirkpatrick said she was disappointed the legislation targeted dreamers.

“I support a robust, fully funded Homeland Security. What I do not support is cynically tying this agency’s funding to a measure aimed directly dreamers – young people who were brought here as children and call our country home. Telling these kids they cannot attend school, contribute to our economy or enlist in our military is like telling them the American dream was meant for someone else,” Kirkpatrick said in a prepared statement.

“Instead of taking aim at children, Congress should pass a bipartisan Homeland Security bill – like the one both chambers negotiated last November – and then get back to the important business of comprehensive immigration reform.”

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post wraps it up nicely. GOP deportation priorities, in the raw:

Republicans have long wanted the debate to be more about what they describe as Obama’s lawlessness — the legality and propriety of Obama’s executive actions in particular — than about underlying policy differences between the parties over what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country.

But despite Boehner’s claim that today’s votes are not about “a dispute between the parties,” they actually clarify the dispute between the parties on that question.

Today’s action goes further than merely defunding Obama’s recent executive actions deferring the deportation of immigrants brought here as children (the 2012 DACA) and of millions of parents of children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents (the more recent DAPA).

It also defunds the implementation of the 2011 Morton memos. The key Morton memo doesn’t formally defer deportation or extend work permits, which Republicans have denounced as crossing from standard prosecutorial discretion into rewriting the law. Rather, it merely lays out general enforcement guidelines that direct agents and lawyers to prioritize the deportation of serious felons, repeat offenders, and serious threats to national security over that of longtime residents, minors, the elderly, or the unhealthy. This was in keeping with Obama’s shift in priorities away from the deportation of low-level offenders with jobs and/or longtime ties to communities, and towards serious criminals and the border.

Today’s GOP action, at bottom, is effectively a repudiation of those basic underlying priorities. That would appear to mean Republicans think enforcement resources should be re-focused back on the deportation of low-level offenders — with jobs and community ties — from the interior. At least, it invites the question of whether that’s what Republicans think.

“Republicans just voted against a mainstream law enforcement utilization of prosecutorial discretion,” Frank Sharry of America’s Voice tells me. “Would they instruct enforcement agents to treat a DREAMer, the spouse of a soldier, or the mother of an American citizen as an equal deportation priority to a convicted gang member, a smuggler, or a serious criminal?”

When asked how we should approach the 11 million — is deportation the answer? — GOP lawmakers tend to sidestep the question. Indeed, Republicans who support reform privately express frustration over the refusal of many GOP lawmakers to get serious about the real dilemma we face — given that mass deportation isn’t going to happen. GOP aides derisively describe those who won’t entertain any form of legalization as the “boxcars crowd.”

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It was only after it became clear that Republicans would not vote on any [comprehensive] solution — even one of their own design, based on their own stated principles — that Obama took his most ambitious unilateral step to restore some sanity to our enforcement regime. And of course, that has led us right back to a place where Republicans are framing their stance on this issue primarily around opposition to Obama.

That may be good politics in most House Republican districts. But we’re now heading into another presidential race, and the House GOP position is arguably to the right of Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” stance.

Republicans were already worried the GOP’s rightward immigration drift could imperil their 2016 nominee. The “sleeping giant” of Latino voters may finally awaken to vote against them in 2016.