A federal judge’s ruling that temporarily blocks President Obama’s executive amnesty is a “perfect reason” not to allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security to lapse, Sen. John McCain said Thursday.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the Arizona lawmaker acknowledged that while Senate Democrats are to blame for refusing to allow debate on a House-passed DHS appropriations bill that would also block Obama’s executive amnesty, he is hopeful that the courts will move forward on the matter.
“I would put sufficient blame on the Democrats for not allowing us to move forward in the Senate,” McCain said. “But having said that, now I’m hopeful with this court decision, with the declaration that the president himself has acted unconstitutionally as he himself stated — would be — I think 22 times—that we would let the courts move forward with this issue since we have a favorable ruling.”
Monday, a federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the administration’s executive amnesty, ruling in favor of 26 states challenging the actions.
Meanwhile, in Congress, Senate Democrats have been refusing to allow the House-passed DHS appropriations bill from coming to the Senate floor for debate due to their objections to the provisions blocking Obama’s executive actions.
Funding for DHS expires on February 27. According to McCain, the department should not be allowed to shut down and the Texas judge has provided a “perfect reason” to allow DHS to be funded.
“It’s not a good idea, Joe, to shut down the Department of Homeland Security and we should be working together — despite the obstruction of our Democratic colleagues — to resolve this issue so that we don’t shut it down,” McCain said. “And now we’ve got a perfect reason to not shut it down because the courts have decided, at least initially, in our favor.”
McCain — who has been an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform — did not specify, however, whether the department should be funded via a so-called “clean” bill, free of the anti-amnesty provisions Democrats have protested.
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