Immigration Reform News 2015: Senate Democrats Should 'Go Off Their Ass' and Pass D.H.S. Bill – Boehner
House Speaker John Boehner told Senate Democrats to "go off their ass" and vote for the Department of Homeland Security funding bill that withholds budget to President Obama's immigration reforms.
"The House has done its job. Why don't you go ask the Senate Democrats when they're gonna go off their ass and do something other than to vote 'no,'" Boehner told reporters on Wednesday.
Senate Democrats have successfully blocked the D.H.S. funding measure, insisting that a clean bill without provisions that defund the President's immigration programs should be passed. The bill needs 60 votes to proceed in the Senate.
The House bill, which was passed last January, withheld funding to Obama's executive actions including providing relief from deportation to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for five years and are parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which defers deportation for three years to people who entered the U.S. as children before Jan. 1, 2010.
The stalemate in the Senate continues with two weeks left before the D.H.S. experiences a shutdown on Feb. 27 if the funding bill is not passed.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid accused Senate Republicans of being "hell-bent on playing chicken with our national security."
"But the Republicans have come to the conclusion that they are far more afraid of these people -- some of whom were here last week -- the DREAMers," he said during the Senate session on Monday. "They dreamed of having a country they could relate to. They came to America as babies. It was the only country they even knew. It was a country where they saluted the flag for many years, and President Obama gave them respectability."
He said that with Republicans insisting on putting the riders on the D.H.S. bill, they are "putting our country at risk."
Quoting D.H.S. Secretary Jeh Johnson, Reid said the department would have to furlough as many as 30,000 people if the Republicans insist on a continuing resolution.
Johnson, in a statement, said without the funding bill, the department is "prevented from funding all new non-disaster assistance grants."
Johnson said without the full-year DHS appropriations bill, they cannot initiate important investments in border security including upgrading "obsolete remote video surveillance systems and mobile video surveillance systems in the Rio Grande Valley."
He warned that "non-intrusive inspection technology at ports of entry cannot be enhanced."
"This technology reduces inspection times while facilitating trade and travel, and is necessary to detect illegal goods and materials, such as potential nuclear and radiological threats," he said.
Johnson said "border security is not free."
"Time is running out. I urge Congress to act responsibly and pass a clean appropriations bill for this Department," he said.