(Washington, D.C.) – For the third time this week, the Senate voted to bring up the House-passed bill which would tie funding of the Department of Homeland Security to the repeal of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, the DACA and DAPA programs that provide temporary relief to DREAMers and parents of U.S. Citizens. The cloture vote again failed by a vote of 52-47.
“Republicans in Congress are continuing to waste time by trying to roll back laws that improve the lives of millions of Americans, rather than find solutions that benefit our nation like finally fixing our broken immigration system,” said Cristóbal Alex, President of the Latino Victory Project. “Latinos know that President Obama will veto any attempts to undo the immigration action and are watching this debate to see who is against this opportunity for many in the Latino community. Latinos will remember Senator Mitch McConnell’s (KY) efforts and the Republican Senators who supported this bill, including those with large Latino populations, such as Cory Gardner (CO), Mark Kirk (IL), Marco Rubio (FL), as well as the Arizona and Texas Senators.
“By turning funding of the Department of Homeland Security into a political issue, Republican Leadership in both the House and Senate as well as the Republican Representatives and Senators who have voted for this bill have demonstrated that they are truly out of step with voters and should remember the communities they will need to rely on in the next election cycle. Our national security is too important to be using it to make anti-immigrant statements. We need to pass a clean DHS funding bill and continue to work together to find commonsense, bi-partisan solutions on immigration.”
A recent poll by CBS News shows that a majority of Americans believe that Congress should keep President Obama’s executive actions in place. Two Republican former Secretaries for the Department of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, have also called on Congressional Republicans to fund the agency.
