Representative Steve King. (file photo)
Republican leaders in the U.S. House have held a vote on a bill designed to let conservatives vent their frustration over President Obama’s executive order on immigration, but Iowa Congressman Steve King says the legislation didn’t go far enough.
“I don’t think it makes it clear enough that the president has clearly violated the constitution of the United States,” King said during remarks on the floor. “I don’t want this to be entered into the record as something that’s ambiguous.”
Some conservatives, including King, are now plotting strategy to try to take stronger action, like trying to deny funding to the agency that would carry out the president’s executive order that delays deportation proceedings for an estimated six million people who lack legal resident status. King merely voted “present” on the House bill leaders presented as a response to the controversy. “The bill moved a little bit from the time that it was first presented,” King says, “It had the word ‘amnesty’ in the title. It said, ‘Preventing Executive Amnesty on Immigration Act.’ Now it says, ‘Preventing Executive Overreach’ — tones it down a little bit for me.”
The debate over immigration is colliding with efforts to craft an overall spending plan for federal government operations. The last budget deal that cleared congress expires next week, on December 11th. The bill passed in the House yesterday states that the president does not have the authority to stop deportations of certain categories of undocumented workers in the U.S. It passed the House, but will not be taken up in the Democratically-led Senate.