Free Republic

The cave has begun. Last night, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) started the process of bringing up a standalone bill that would only overturn Obama’s executive amnesty issued last fall. It would leave in place the previous executive amnesty from 2012, DACA. What Senate Leadership won’t tell you is that the standalone bill is designed to fail. Democrats will block the bill and then Senate Republicans will move either a long-term bill to fully fund Obama’s executive amnesty and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or only a short-term bill to fund Obama’s executive amnesty and DHS. Both are unacceptable options to...

The battle over funding the Department of Homeland Security before a Friday deadline is rapidly shifting, as Senate Republicans begin to lay out their plan to end the impasse. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, stood against conservatives in his ranks Tuesday and announced he plans to bring forward a clean, longer-term funding bill to the floor this week in an effort to stop a potential DHS shutdown. "I've indicated to the Democratic leader that I'd be happy to have his cooperation to advance the consideration of a clean DHS bill which would carry us through till September 30th," McConnell said to...

Republicans supportive of broad changes to immigration law are trying to build a political fence between their party’s presidential candidates and the anti-amnesty position popular with many in the conservative grassroots. Mitt Romney’s abysmal 27 percent performance with Hispanic voters in 2012, which many attribute to his hardline opposition to so-called immigration reform during the GOP primary, still lingers with Republican establishment insiders two and a half years later. They’re working to prevent a repeat of that performance, which they believe contributed to Romney's loss to President Obama. Republicans who advocate changes to immigration policy that would include a pathway...

A federal court has ruled that the Obama administration’s plan to issue work permits to illegal immigrants is–this is not exactly a surprise–illegal. But the Democrats are undeterred. Today, for the fourth time, they filibustered funding for the Department of Homeland Security, insisting that if Obama’s illegal program isn’t funded, the entire DHS must be shut down. In the meantime, it has come to light that the Obama administration has been handing out illegal work permits for years. The Center for Immigration Studies has received documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that indicate millions of such...

Days from a Homeland Security Department shutdown, Senate Republicans sought a way out Monday by splitting President Barack Obama’s contested immigration measures from the agency’s funding bill. It was not clear whether the gambit by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would succeed ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline to fund the department or see it shut down. It was far from certain whether it would win any Democratic support, and House conservatives remain firmly opposed to any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department that does not also overturn Obama’s executive actions on immigration. But with Senate Democrats united against a...

"We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CBS's "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer on Sunday. "Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve." (All told in fiscal year 2014, U.S immigration officials removed 213,719 individuals apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.) Schieffer reminded Abbott that there...

hat does it take for Senate Republicans to decide not to confirm Loretta Lynch, who is President Obama’s nominee to be attorney general? At what point is the lawlessness simply too much? It is entirely within the power of the newly elected Republican majority in the Senate not to confirm Ms. Lynch. The only question is whether the GOP majority will exercise its constitutional authority to do so. Personally, I wanted to support Ms. Lynch’s nomination. Six years of Eric Holder has done enormous damage, and Ms. Lynch’s service as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York...

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest twice cited Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) support for funding President Obama's executive amnesty program during Monday's White House press briefing. "I am willing and ready to pass a DHS funding bill and let this play out in court," Graham told ABC News Sunday, referring to U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen's decision last week to issue an injunction blocking Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program. House Republicans already passed a bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, but Senate Democrats are filibustering that bill since it would defund the Department of...

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he’s prepared to vote with Republicans against President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, but first there needs to be a clean vote on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security beyond the end of the month. Manchin said he backs Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan for a standalone bill that would separate DHS funding from the president’s action on immigration. Story Continued Below . . “I’ve always said we should not fool with Homeland Security,” the West Virginia senator said in an interview with “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning. “We...

Days from a Homeland Security Department shutdown, Senate Republicans sought a way out Monday by splitting President Barack Obama’s contested immigration measures from the agency’s funding bill. It was not clear whether the gambit by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would succeed ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline to fund the department or see it shut down. It was far from certain whether it would win any Democratic support, and House conservatives remain firmly opposed to any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department that does not also overturn Obama’s executive actions on immigration. But with Senate Democrats united against a...

WASHINGTON -- The Senate finally appears to have a Plan B -- or at least the beginnings of one -- to break the standstill on funding the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that the chamber will vote on a stand-alone bill to block President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions that could allow as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants to remain in the country and work.

Judge Andrew Napolitano on “The Kelly File” Monday called the Obama administration “crazy” for arguing that illegal immigrants should be given priority over law-abiding citizens.Reacting to the government filing both an appeal and a motion to allow President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration to go forward, Napolitano told host Shannon Bream that while the government has a right to appeal, he has never seen the government argue “we must help lawbreakers break the law more.” “They made a crazy argument,” Napolitano began. “They actually said if you don’t lift your appeal, you will cause irreparable harm to the federal government because...

Republicans seek honorable retreat from homeland security funding fight amid shutdown fearsThe Homeland Security Department quietly canceled one of its major amnesty contracts after a judge’s ruling against the program last week, but officials have struggled to explain how they are complying otherwise even as the administration filed an appeal Monday asking that it be allowed to begin processing applications immediately.

A core group of House Republicans are currently signing on to a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise urging them to hold the line against funding for President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) is leading the effort to thank leadership, and urging it to remain stalwart. “We write you today to thank you for standing firm and forcing the Senate to act on a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that stops President Obama’s unlawful executive actions on immigration,” the Republican House members who have thus far signed...

This is a damn embarrassment. Sorry, but there is no other way to put it. Elected Democrats are not capable of feeling shame over switching their stated positions. One need only look to the filibuster fight – which McConnell also lost, in recent memory – to know this to be an undisputed fact. So the executive amnesty bill gets brought the floor and Democrats will filibuster it. Even if they don’t, Obama will veto it. Life will go on and the press will not care, nor will they hold Democrats’ feet to the fire. The only way this action stood...

The Department of Homeland Security is catapulting toward a shutdown this weekend as Republicans and Democrats remain at odds over whether funding for the agency should be tied to a broader debate about the president's executive actions that allow young immigrants and their families to stay in the U.S. without threat of deportation. With just four days left to find consensus, the Senate voted for a fourth time Monday night on a House-passed bill that fully funded DHS, but rolled back President Obama's orders on immigration. The bill was again blocked. But there may now be early signs of a...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday took steps to prevent a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by splitting off legislation attacking President Obama’s immigration actions from the funding fight. McConnell’s actions would bring to the floor a bill blocking Obama’s actions late last year to shield millions from deportation. The new bill would not be connected to legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security, however, and it would not attack Obama’s earlier executive actions in 2012 to shield certain young people from deportation. Those actions are more popular than the steps Obama took last year. McConnell...

(CNSNews.com) – House Rules Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) told CNSNews.com that he wants to “prevent illegal immigrants from staying here unlawfully” and “guarantee that those who violate the laws of our nation are punished for doing so.” However, his comments stand in contrast to what he said last year, pledging to work with Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to "push a bill" on immigration in 2015 whose goal “would not be to remove any person that might be here unless they were dangerous to this country and committed a crime.” CNSNews.com sent the following four questions via email to Sessions'...

Karl Rove wrote the following in the Wall Street Journal: The good news for Republicans is that Monday’s preliminary injunction by federal district Judge Andrew Hanen, which stopped implementation of Mr. Obama’s November immigration executive order, gives the GOP an opportunity to extract itself. It’s his usual tripe; he disregards, or rather, has no ability to read, the views of the American people, looks for a way the Republicans can beg off of a difficult road in a manner in which they can allow the Democrats get their way, and themselves a plausible explanation of why their hands were tied....

No, DHS may not grant work permits to whomever it wishes. Judge Hanen’s Presidents’ Day drubbing of Obama’s amnesty agenda was so comprehensive in its rebuttal of the DOJ’s arguments that the DOJ’s initial reaction was stunned silence rather the immediate flurry of filings that usually follow their rare defeats. In his ruling, the judge swiftly smacked down the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to assert that it had a “generalized discretion” to enforce or not enforce our immigration laws. Such a generalized approach, he wrote, would render Congress’s carefully drafted statutes on immigration “superfluous” and “meaningless.” Hanen further pointed...