Democrats in the Senate are today poised to block the passing of a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would prevent the execution of President Obama’s executive action to enact immigration reform. Despite its majority in the Senate, the Republican Party needs at least six Democrats to vote in favor of the bill – and they say this is simply not going to happen.
“We are united as a caucus, and we are going to work to stop this [GOP] strategy,” notes Illinois senator Dick Durbin, who is the Senate’s No 2 Democrat. If the Senate does reject the bill it will be returned to the House of Representatives, which will then have to make a decision about whether to take out the immigration amendments or risk another partial government shutdown.
President Obama has urged Congress not to put DHS funding at risk, while Durbin says that the failure of the bill is inevitable and that John Boehner, the speaker of the House, may have passed it through in the hope of demonstrating to the more extreme conservative Republicans that such tactics are not going to work in the Senate, regardless of their level of rhetoric.
If the bill fails, which appears to be inevitable, it is uncertain what the House Republicans’ next move will be; however, they seem to remain committed to trying to prevent Obama’s action, which he announced back in November, to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.