House Republican leaders were forced yesterday to scrap a pivotal vote on a border security bill aimed at coping with a surge of unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border and unable to act on a problem that they have repeatedly described as a national crisis. President Obama will now not have the resources necessary to deal with the border crisis until mid-September at the earliest.
As late as yesterday morning, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) said they had enough votes to pass a stripped-down $659 million border bill aimed at funding federal agencies, speeding up deportations, and bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border. The collapse of the border bill was a result of a revolt by Senator Ted Cruiz (R-TX), along with a dozen other House Republicans, that ruptured the fragile coalition supporting the measure, which ultimately forced Boehner to pull the bill in the face of certain defeat.
Cruz and other conservative House Republicans said the problem with Boehner’s bill was that it was ignoring the real issue. The problem, in their eyes, was the president’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which is a product of a 2012 executive order that granted temporary relief for some children of illegal immigrants. They wanted this program gutted, but Boehner would reportedly not touch it.
The Senate also failed to advance legislation to address the immigration crisis, unable to overcome a procedural hurdle and then left town for a five-week summer recess and to begin preparing for the fall elections.
The only two significant measures approved by Congress as of yesterday were bills authorizing broad reforms at the Department of veterans Affairs and an nine-month-extension of federal highway-construction funding.