Democrat leaders in the Senate yesterday threatened to block legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until the provisions attached by Republicans to reverse the executive action taken by President Obama on immigration reform have been removed.
Unless Congress takes action by February 27th, the Department of Homeland Security will lose much of its funding ‒ an event that both major political parties have claimed to want to avoid. The Republican Party has made the decision to use the funding bill to try to prevent the immigration reform ordered by the president, however, with the bill due to hit the floor of the Senate in the next few days.
Senator Charles Schumer says that Democrat senators will not to go along with the plans and slammed the Republican Party for hijacking the issue of DHS funding for the sake of its own political agenda. “They seem to dislike the idea of supporting homeland security,” Schumer criticized. “They dislike Dreamers more than they dislike ISIS.” Schumer added that the Democratic Party is united in its intent to refuse to pass the funding bill until the Republican attachments have been removed.
The bill, which has already been passed by the House of Representatives, would fund the Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the budgetary year but reverse Obama’s executive action and his 2012 deferred action policy. The president has threatened to veto the bill in the unlikely event that it is passed by the Senate.