House of Representatives speaker and Republican John Boehner says he is willing to allow Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding to lapse as part of his party’s desperate bid to block the executive action taken by President Obama on immigration reform.
The deadline to fund the DHS is February 27th and with this date looming, Democrats in the Senate have blocked three attempts to pass a DHS funding bill that included attachments intended to block the executive action Obama announced last December and roll back the deferred action program he introduced back in 2012. Boehner told Fox News that the Democrats are to blame for the lack of funding ‒ an attitude that has infuriated not just the opposition but also some members of his own party.
Leading Republican John McCain told Meet the Press on NBC that he was becoming increasingly alarmed by the situation and by Boehner’s apparent willingness to endanger DHS funding. “The American people did not give us majority to have a fight between House and Senate Republicans,” McCain declared. “They want things done. You cannot cut funding from the Department of Homeland Security. We need to sit down and work this thing out.”
A spokesman for House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi, Drew Hammill, says that Boehner’s intransigent attitude makes his position clear for all to see. “The speaker’s reliance on talking points and finger pointing was a sad reflection of the fact that [the] Tea Party continues to hold the gavel as they insist on their futile anti-immigrant grandstanding,” Hammill said in a statement.
