President Barack Obama’s spokesman is rejecting any compromise over the 2015 budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which is now being filibustered by pro-amnesty Democrat senators, even though a new poll shows that 60 percent of Americans want the amnesty and budget problems separated.
“The President believes that the Congress, particularly Republicans in Congress who now have the majority in both the House and the Senate, should fulfill their responsibility to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t shut down at the end of this month,” spokesman Josh Earnest said Feb. 20.
Senate Democrats are filibustering the House’s DHS 2015 budget until the Senate GOP majority removes House-drafted language that bars Obama from spending money to implement his Nov. 20 Oval Office amnesty.
The amnesty would grant four million work-permits to illegals, despite Americans’ high unemployment rate. The agency’s budget runs out Feb. 27.
The Democrats’ continued filibuster reflects Obama’s intense determination to increase immigration.
But his rejection of any compromise is escalating the DHS fight into a bigger political battle over the ability of the new 54-seat Republican Senate majority to get legislation past the 46-seat Democratic minority.
Still, Obama is in a political hole. He’s already lost the battle for public opinion on immigration, he lost the Senate in 2014 partly because of the issue, and now he’s lost the first round of the Texas lawsuit.
The president’s amnesty was blocked by a Texas judge on Feb. 16. White House officials said Feb. 20 they would ask an the judge on Feb. 23 to lift the injunction.
Obama is also losing the public opinion fight over the Democrat threat to defund DHS rather than allow the GOP to deny funds for the unpopular amnesty.
A CBS poll released Monday shows that 60 percent of 1,006 adults said the DHS budget “should be kept separate from immigration policy.”
“American’s don’t want Obama or Democrats unilaterally changing immigration policy,” a Hill aide told The Daily Caller. “They want a DHS bill that funds the laws as they exist, period.”
The CBS poll complements a CNN survey, released Feb. 18, that said 59 percent of 1,027 adults disapprove of Obama’s immigration policies. That’s up from 53 percent in November.
The Democrats’ determined fight is creating a political dilemma for the GOP’s leaders, who tend to support business demands for increased immigration of government-subsidized customers and lower-wage labor.
If the leaders cave to the Democrats, they’ll betray their base, which is almost unified in opposition to the Obama amnesty.
If GOP leaders stick with their base, then Democrats and their allies in the media will blame them for the defunding of the DHS after Feb. 27. Under current rules, most DHS employes stay on the job without payroll until there’s a DHS budget agreement.
If GOP leaders launch an emotional public PR campaign against the Democrats’ amnesty, for example, by arguing that it is unfair to Americans, they’ll get a lot of closed-door pushback from critical donors.
So far, Republican senators haven’t organized a PR pushback to counter the effort to fund the amnesty. For example, the Senate Republican Conference, led by Sen. John Thune, is silent about the issue, even though the committee “helps senators communicate their priorities directly to the American people through a wide variety of communications resources.”
In contrast, the Democrats’ lave launched an emotional pitch via several channels, including Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Democratic Policy and Communication Center.