CANTOR TO RESIGN
Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., whose last day as House majority leader was Thursday, said Friday that he would resign his seat effective Aug. 18 in hopes that his successor will be able to participate in the lame-duck session after the November elections. He lost the Republican primary in his Northern Virginia district in June to David Brat, a little-known and more conservative candidate with tea party backing. The results shocked Washington and led to a shake-up in the House leadership after Cantor said he would resign as the No. 2 House Republican. The news that he would also give up his seat early was a surprise. The 14-year House veterans said he would ask Virginia’sGov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, to call a special election for his seat on Nov. 4, move that would allow the winner to take Cantor’s seat immediately rather than wait for the next Congress to be seated in January.
— New York Times
President Barack Obama warned he would have to take executive action to address the immigration crisis on the Texas-Mexico border as the Republican-led House late Friday approved a bill and debated a companion measure that he said contained “extreme and unworkable” provisions.
GOP leaders, unable to muster sufficient support among Republican lawmakers to pass the main immigration bill, had pulled it from the floor Thursday in a chaotic retreat. But tea party-aligned members enthusiastically supported the new $694 million version late Friday, ensuring its 223-189 approval along mainly party lines.
The companion measure — key to gaining their support — would shut off a program created by Obama granting work permits to immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. It was also designed to prevent the more than 500,000 people who have already gotten work permits under the program from renewing them, ultimately making them subject to deportation.
“It’s dealing with the issue that the American people care about more than any other, and that is stopping the invasion of illegal foreign nationals into our country,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
The measures, however, are expected to get a cold shoulder from the Democratic-majority Senate, which adjourned Friday until September. The House was expected to depart Friday, as well, for the annual five-week break.
In an afternoon press conference, Obama said Republicans knew the “extreme and unworkable” measures would go “nowhere,” and that he would have to take action on his own in the coming month before money runs out for coping with the crisis. Since fall, tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children have poured across the border from Mexico into South Texas.
“They’re not even trying to solve the problem,” Obama said of House Republicans. “I’m going to have to act alone, because we do not have enough resources.”
But GOP House members, said they had acted where the Senate — which departed without passing its own bill — had failed.
“It would be irresponsible and unstatesmanlike to head home for the month without passing a bill to address this serious, present crisis on the border,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
To reach a deal, GOP leaders had to satisfy the concerns of a group of a dozen or more conservative lawmakers who were meeting behind the scenes with Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Allied with groups including the Heritage Foundation that opposed earlier versions of immigration legislation, they objected to sending any more money to Obama for dealing with the crisis without taking a strong stance against his two-year-old deportation relief program.
Republicans blame the program for causing the border influx by creating the perception that once here, young migrants will be allowed to stay — a point the administration disputes.
House GOP leaders agreed earlier in the week to hold a separate vote to prevent Obama from expanding the program, but the conservatives held out for stronger steps.
Thursday night, those lawmakers huddled in the basement of the Capitol with new House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., to come up with a bill that would end funding for the program as well as make changes to the border bill aimed at ensuring the faster removal of the Central American migrant youths.
The GOP plans met with howls of protest from immigration advocates and Democrats, who warned Republicans that they would be alienating Latino voters for years to come.
“If you tell people that you think they’re criminals, that you think they’re simply bringing diseases, that they’re bringing drugs, then you treat them as invaders, they kind of think you don’t like them,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
Like earlier versions, the GOP bill approved Friday would increase spending for overwhelmed border agencies, add more immigration judges and detention spaces, and alter a 2008 anti-trafficking law to permit Central American children to be sent back home without deportation hearings. That process is currently permitted only for unaccompanied minors arriving from Mexico and Canada.
The bill would pay for strapped border agencies only for the final two months of this budget year, falling far short of the $3.7 billion Obama initially requested to deal with the crisis into next year. More than 57,000 unaccompanied youths have arrived since October, mostly from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, plus tens of thousands more migrants traveling as families.
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