The Congressional Research Service laid to rest any doubt on Wednesday that Congress has the power to defund President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, countering claims that it cannot be done because the agency that processes immigration applications is fee-funded.
While an appropriations bill wouldn’t stop an agency from collecting fees, Congress has the authority to restrict what the federal government can do with its funds.
“Therefore, if a statute were enacted which prohibited appropriated funds from being used for some specified purposes, then the relevant funds would be unavailable to be obligated or expended for those purposes,” CRS said in a report requested by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and shared with TPM. “In either case, the funds available to the agency through fee collections would be subject to the same potential restrictions imposed by Congress to the use of its appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds.”
House Republican leaders have opened the door to this approach.
They are weighing a strategy advanced by incoming House Budget Chair Tom Price (R-GA) to strip out immigration funding from the omnibus appropriations bill being negotiated, and deal with that separately in a “continuing resolution.” In that, they could attach a rider that stops federal officials from spending any money to process applications for undocumented immigrants seeking a temporary work permit under Obama’s program.
That would set up a standoff and a potential government shutdown. Senior administration officials say Obama would veto a bill that unwinds his actions.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) warned Republicans not to pick that fight.
“House Democrats have fought against Republican attempts to shut down the government. Now, House Republicans are seeking to disguise their efforts, threatening our national security in order to undermine the President’s clear legal authority. We will not be enablers to a Republican Government Shutdown, partial or otherwise,” she said in a statement on Tuesday, after initial reports of the emerging GOP strategy.
Federal government funding expires on Dec. 11. It is plausible that a fight gets pushed to early next Congress when Republicans take over the Senate and have more clout to confront Obama.
If voters were “sending a message” in the last election, the message was apparently that they wanted another government shutdown. Their wish seems likely to be granted.
If this doesn’t work, the minutemen will start beheading illegal aliens.
MORE bullshit headline clickbait from TPM. Here is the update about the latest harebrained Teabagger Republican Defunding Scheme (Scam?):
An Appropriations Committee aide tells HuffPost the CRS report says nothing different than the committee has already explained.
“In no way does the the CRS report contradict anything the committee has said,” said the aide. “It would take an act of Congress to change the underlying statute to restrict the use of fees, not a simple ‘defunding’ provision on an appropriations bill, because the agency does not receive appropriated funds year to year.”
The aide also pointed to a 2013 Department of Homeland Security report that explicitly states that under a “federal funding hiatus,” or a government shutdown, USCIS employees continue to work because they are funded “by other than annual Appropriations.”
Please, Mr. Kapur, report the WHOLE story. This isn’t CNN or FoxNews, and I hope your journalistic ethics are greater than those of Don Lemon or Sean Hannity.
Let em try.
Or, they could pass a bill, like Congress used to do.
Do we really need any more articles telling us how childish congressional republicans are? Everyone already knows it, and the majority doesn’t seem to care.