WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are increasing pressure on majority Republicans to abandon plans to block President Barack Obama’s immigration orders as a condition of funding the Homeland Security Department.
Second-ranking Senate Democrat Richard Durbin said it would be “the height of irresponsibility,” given recent terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere, for Republicans to use the spending measure to try to thwart Obama’s easing of the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
“Now is not the time to play politics with Homeland Security,” Durbin of Illinois said Wednesday in a speech on the Senate floor.
Under an agreement reached in December before Democrats turned over control of the Senate to Republicans, Homeland Security funding is scheduled to lapse Feb. 27. That means the agency would face a shutdown if Congress doesn’t agree on a funding plan by then.
The House voted Jan. 14 to finance the agency through Sept. 30. The bill includes language seeking to block Obama’s November immigration order that protects almost 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The House measure also would end a 2012 directive aiding undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, although that provision was opposed by 26 Republicans.
Senate Republicans are making the case for preserving the immigration language, though Obama has said he would veto a bill that includes it.
“This is an important fight to have,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of the Republican leadership who is up for re-election next year. “I think we should do everything we can to persuade at least a half a dozen Democrats that they should join us to get this done.”
So far, Democrats are united against including immigration language in the spending bill. They introduced a bill this week to fund Homeland Security without making policy changes.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement that Republicans “should not put our national security at risk simply because they are too timid to stand up to the extreme right-wing voices in their own caucus.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the chamber will take up the funding measure once it completes work, probably this week, on legislation approving TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.
McConnell wouldn’t say what version of the Homeland Security bill the chamber would consider and what, if any, amendments would be allowed.
“The procedure by which we deal with that will be determined later,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters Tuesday.
