White House says it would veto Tea Party legislation defunding Obama's immigration orders

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[h=1]White House says it would veto Tea Party legislation defunding Obama's immigration orders[/h]

• MailOnline exclusively obtained a draft copy of the legislation under consideration by conservatives in the House
• It says 'no part of any appropriation,' including 'funds or fees collected' can be used by 'any agency to implement' Obama's immigration directives
• House Republicans will discuss the legislation at a closed-door meeting tomorrow on Capitol Hill
• The language could be part of a must-pass bill that would keep the government's doors open beyond next Thursday
• The White House reiterated its preference today that Congress pass a yearlong appropriations bill

 

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The White House said on Monday that it would veto a bill baring federal agencies from using their funds to implement President Barack Obama's immigration actions if conservatives in Congress successfully pushed it through.
The spokesperson for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had been hesitant in the past to say outright that Obama would veto such legislation if it were to pass, but with the proposal gaining steam, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters today that the president would send the bill back to Congress should it land on his desk.
The veto threat comes as a group of conservative House members reviewed specific language they want inserted in an upcoming spending bill prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from using any funds whatsoever to the distribution of work permits and green cards for the roughly five million illegal immigrants Obama has instructed the agency to stop deporting.

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President Barack Obama is pictured here signing two presidential memoranda associated with his actions on immigration in his office on Air Force One on Friday, Nov. 21. Conservatives in Congress are trying to block them from taking effect by placing restrictions on how relevant immigration agencies can use their funds

 

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A draft copy of the language, obtained exclusively by MailOnline, states that 'no part of any appropriation,' including 'funds or fees collected or otherwise made available for expenditure, may be used by any agency to implement, administer, enforce or carry out any of the policy changes set forth' in the president's recent directives to DHS.
Resolute in their opposition to the president's unilateral decision to defer the deportation of up to five million illegal immigrants, staunch conservative lawmakers are pressuring Republican leadership to include the prohibitive language in a must-pass bill that would keep the government from shutting down next week.
Conservatives are charging ahead with the plan to restrict the spending of government agencies that handle immigration, specifically the distribution of green cards and work permits Obama has promised illegal migrants, even as Republican party leaders continue to balk at the strategy and appropriators in the House claim it's not possible.
GOP House members will hold a closed-door meeting on Tuesday during which both sides will have the opportunity to make their case to the entire caucus.
The outcome of the intra-party battle will be a telling sign of how much influence the Tea Party wing of the GOP will have over the party's agenda in the coming legislative session when Republicans take full control over both chambers of Congress for the final two years of Obama's tenure in the White House.
It will also show just how thirsty Republicans are to reign in Obama's authority as chief executive of the country.
If the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate are unable to come to an agreement on appropriations legislation by Dec. 11 - the day before lawmakers are scheduled to leave town until early next year - non-essential government services will go dark until new spending legislation is passed.

 

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While Senate Majority Leader Harry has accused Republican legislators trying to use the critical appropriations bill of 'holding our government hostage,' conservatives on the Hill say they don't believe it will come down to a shutdown.
Faced with the possibility of a second stoppage in normal government functions in less than two years, they believe Senate Democrats will cave under pressure and allow their bill to come to the floor, setting up a separate confrontation with the White House.
Still under discussion is whether the language would be part of a standalone bill to fund DHS that is separate from an omnibus bill funding the rest of the government through at least the first month of next year, allowing other government agencies to continue operating if the measure is unsuccessful, or whether the GOP will go all or nothing and include it in the main legislation to keep the government open.
The draft obtained by MailOnline and confirmed by multiple GOP sources on the Hill does not detail the legislative strategy and a source familiar with the proposal confirmed to MailOnline that it's still up for debate.
Among the actions taken by the president targeted in the draft are his memorandums changing the 'Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants' and those that give DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson the prosecutorial discretion to defer deportation of migrants residing in the country illegally who came to the U.S. as children before Jan. 1, 2010.
It would also block DHS from issuing work permits to illegal immigrants who have been living in the U.S. since that date and have American-born children and prevent it from handing out additional permits to high-skilled workers.
If the immigration specific language were set aside in a stand alone bill and Senate Democrats refused to bring it to the floor after it's all but assured passage in the House, only DHS would be affected by the partial shutdown a GOP congressional source told MailOnline recently.
Even then, essential services in the department, including border security, would go untouched.
'Congress cannot hand the President a blank check for his continued lawlessness,' Dan Holler, the communications director of influential conservative grassroots group Heritage Action told MailOnline in an email.
'The Republican-controlled House should use the upcoming funding bill to block Obama’s plan to give amnesty, work permits and Social Security numbers to those who are in the country illegally.'

 

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A demonstrator who disagrees with Obama's immigration policies stands outside Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada on Nov. 21 during an event in which the president delivered remarks on his executive actions

 

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Members of the House Appropriations committee recently issued a statement saying that a key immigration agency the bill is designed to keep from enforcing Obama's memorandum is not subject to congressional oversight of its funds because it receives much of its money from application fees.
However, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, a government-funded fact-finding organization that works for Congress, debunked that claim in a letter last week to a senator who strongly favors the conservative approach.
'The funds available to the agency through fee collections would be subject to the same potential restrictions imposed by Congress on the use of its appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds,' it said, breathing new life into conservative legislators' plot.
Though Republicans account for a majority of the members in the House, they have just 45 seats in the Senate and would need to convince at least 15 Democratic and Independent lawmakers to join their cause in order to have a filibuster-proof majority.
A handful of Democratic Senators have publicly shown their displeasure with the president over his decision to go it alone on immigration but whether they would vote to tie their party leaders hands is less clear.
If they did and Obama did refuse to sign the legislation, leading to a government shut down, that would be president's fault, not lawmakers', conservatives on Capitol have vehemently argued.
'President Obama will no doubt threaten a shutdown—that seems to be the one card he repeatedly plays,' Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said in a recent op-ed in Politico outlining the GOP strategy to defund the president's immigration actions.
'If the President is unwilling to accept funding for, say, the Department of Homeland Security without his being able to unilaterally defy the law, he alone will be responsible for the consequences,' Cruz wrote.
Cruz, a presumed 2016 presidential candidate, notably led the charge last fall to gut the president's signature law, Obamacare. When Democrats refused to vote for legislation starving the health care law of its funding, the government shut down for more than two weeks beginning on Oct. 1, the first day of the 2014 fiscal year.
It was not until the evening of Oct. 16 that Republicans in the House and Senate approved a continuing resolution allowing the government to reopen.
The White House said Monday that it doesn't believe that a majority of lawmakers would again be willing to shut down the government.
Pointing to previous statements from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that a shutdown is not in the works, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said today that it sends a 'pretty clear' message when one of 'the most influential Republicans in Congress' says it's not going to happen.
The White house, he told reporters on Monday afternoon, continues to stand by its position that Congress should pass a yearlong appropriations bill.
'What we would like to see is something that would sort of eliminate any kind of uncertainty,' he said, adding that Congress should pass an omnibus spending bill that would fund all areas of the government.
'We're not asking them to do anything heroic, we're asking them to do their job,' Earnest stated.