Terrorist threats made against a shopping mall in Minnesota have been seized upon by Democrats in their bid to force the Republican Party to walk away from the deadlock over the funding of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which the Republicans have used to try to block President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform.
With the warnings mounting about the consequences of allowing the DHS’s funding to expire on Friday, the two major political parties of the United States appear as divided as ever when it comes to their argument over immigration. The latest Senate attempt to pass the funding bill that includes attachments blocking Obama’s executive action was defeated again yesterday, with senators remaining firmly divided on party lines.
Democrats say that the Republican Party is using DHS funding to try to put the brakes on the president’s legal executive action on US immigration reform. “The Senate is locked in a game parliamentary ping pong to move this legislation forward where the losers are the American people,” notes Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski. “Let the courts decide whether the president exceeded his executive authority. Whatever the courts decide, I think we will be able to accept it.”
The strategy of the Republicans was slammed as “reckless and dangerous” by New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, who says that the shutting down of the Department of Homeland Security would send a terrible message to drug cartels and terrorist groups such as ISIS.