Obama Will Shut Border Agency To Aid Illegals, Says Aide

President Barack Obama will block 2015 funding for the Department of Homeland Security if Republicans includes spending curbs on the president’s executive amnesty, says a top aide.

That amnesty action includes the award of work permits, drivers’ licenses, Social Security cards and tax rebates to at least four million illegal [alien] immigrants, despite the wage-cutting surplus of American workers in Obama’s economy.

The adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, told a Huffington Post interviewer Dec. 29 that the president would “absolutely not” sign a 2015 spending bill that would include limits on amnesty spending...

But Pfeiffer’s veto threat is likely superfluous, because the GOP’s top congressional leaders have gone silent on their early-December promises to curb the amnesty spending after February...

Pfeiffer’s show of confidence is belied by polls, which show that GOP voters are strongly opposed to Obama’s immigration policies, and that most Americans oppose policies that allow companies to hire migrants in place of Americans...

The Republican leadership is only showing token evidence that it will respond to those voters.

For example, the GOP’s 2015 budget provided only two months of appropriations to the agency that is carrying out Obama’s amnesty. That two-month limit was offered by the leadership to conservatives to help win their support for the 2015 funding bill, which passed mid-December.

But 67 GOP legislators voted against the bill when the GOP leaders refused to include language barring the amnesty, but added a valuable favor for Wall Street...

But there’s nothing normal about president’s decision to ignore immigration law.

First, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that will actually hand out the work permits doesn’t rely on congressional funds. It uses fees from legal immigrants to fund its operations — and Obama plans to use fees from illegal [alien] immigrants to fund the amnesty during 2015. The GOP “can shut down DHS, you can’t defund our executive action because it is paid for by fees,” Pfeiffer said.

Second, even if the GOP leadership or Obama blocks appropriations funding for DHS, most of its employees are law enforcement officials who are exempt from government shutdowns. That means DHS border guards and customs officials will keep working, even if Congress and the White House can’t agree on a funding bill. That legal quirk will reduce the pressure for both sides to agree on a funding bill.

Third, and most importantly, there’s little evidence that the GOP leadership wants to defund the amnesty...