5 Things That Will Happen if Congress Doesn’t Fund Homeland Security
When Congress comes back to town Tuesday, lawmakers will have a mere three days to confront the gridlock that is threatening to leave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without funding for its operations after February 27.
When Congress approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill in December, they purposefully let DHS funding expire in February to appease conservatives who wanted a chance to challenge the president’s immigration policies in the newly Republican Congress. Now, they must confront the issue once again. Republicans want a bill that defunds the Mr. Obama’s executive actions that would shield millions from deportation, while Democrats argue the president is acting within his authority and are pushing for a so-called “clean” bill.
The House passed a bill in January that undoes the president’s executive actions, but it can’t make it past Democratic objections in the Senate. Some lawmakers, including Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina and Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, are hoping that a recent court decision challenging the president’s immigration policies will be enough to convince lawmakers not to let funding expire.
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