The Patriot Post® · House GOP Settles on Anti-Amnesty Bill

House Speaker John Boehner announced, “The House will soon take action aimed at stopping the president’s unilateral action when it comes to immigration. Republicans are in agreement that this is a gravely serious matter. The president’s unilateral actions were an affront to the rule of law and our system of government. The American people don’t support it, and as their representatives, [we] cannot let it stand. I said we’d fight it tooth and nail when we had new majorities in the House and Senate, and I meant it.” Various options were debated among House Republicans before they settled on a plan late Thursday. According to National Review’s Joel Gehrke, the plan “would withhold funding for Obama’s November orders; for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that contributed to the summer border crisis; and also for two memoranda that are predicates for DACA that were written by Obama appointee and former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director John Morton. The bill is on pace to be filed Friday so that the House can vote on it next Tuesday without violating the Republicans’ rule that lawmakers must have at least 72 hours to read a bill before casting their votes.” Targeting DACA will please conservatives but it will make it harder to peel off Democrat votes in the Senate for passage, much less overriding the inevitable veto. Still, this shows that Republicans are willing to fight the right fights.