WASHINGTON - The Congress on Thursday is set to debate "emergency" border security legislation that lawmakers acknowledge will not be enacted but will enable them to campaign for re-election by arguing they worked to address a humanitarian crisis.
Republicans and Democrats have been sparring over President Barack Obama's request for $3.7 billion to respond to the crisis in which tens of thousands of Central American children have tried to enter the United States illegally.
With Congress on the verge of beginning its five-week summer recess, the votes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-held Senate on Thursday will mark a holding pattern.
When lawmakers return in September, they will be focused on legislation to keep the government running in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.
It is unclear whether the thorny immigration funding problem will nose its way into efforts to pass the budget bill and avoid a repeat of the government shutdown last October, when Republicans tried to hobble Obama's 2010 healthcare law.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Thursday, the House will debate providing $659 million for the border problem, which is far below Obama's request and has drawn a veto threat from the White House.
House Speaker John Boehner, facing a revolt from some conservative Republicans who complain that the measure would not do enough to stop the migration of children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, made a new concession late on Wednesday.
With Senator Ted Cruz, who has strong support from the conservative Tea Party movement, working behind the scenes to help defeat the bill in the House, Boehner agreed to add a vote on a second bill on Thursday.
"I have been speaking with members in both houses who have an interest in my views," Cruz told Reuters late on Wednesday.
The second bill would stop Obama from expanding his 2012 action to suspend deportations of children brought by their parents to the United States before mid-2007.
The House has passed legislation that attempted to shut down the 2012 policy, which Republicans link to the influx of children now arriving at the southwestern border with Mexico. [L2N0PM2AP]
Neither bill is expected to get an airing in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Obama has faced a rebellion from liberal Democrats who were angered by the president's support for legislation that would allow him to deport the Central American children more easily and more quickly.
ADVERTISEMENT
As a result, the Senate will vote on Thursday on a $2.7 billion bill to hire more immigration judges, help feed and house the young immigrants and take steps to discourage more Central American children from making the journey north.
Republicans are expected to block this bill from advancing because of the amount of proposed spending and their belief that it fails to address the root of the problem.
