By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Overriding objections from some conservative Republicans, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner vowed on Thursday to plow ahead with a spending bill that averts a government shutdown while keeping some budget “leverage” over President Barack Obama’s immigration order.
Boehner said he expected the bill, which provides full funding for all government agencies except the Department of Homeland Security through September 2015, to pass next week with some votes from Democrats, just ahead of a Dec. 11 deadline.
The department, which controls the agencies that would implement Obama’s plan to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States, would get only a short-term funding extension, likely until sometime in February, Republican lawmakers said.
At that time, Republicans will be in a better position to restrict spending on immigration-related items since they take control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House of Representatives in the new year following the November midterm elections.
“We think this is the most practical way to fight the president’s action,” Boehner told a news conference. “And we listened to our members.”
Obama’s plan, announced last month as an executive order, would let up to 4.7 million of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States stay without threat of deportation. Republicans have criticized it as an overreach of powers that amounts to an amnesty for lawbreakers.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bill Trott, John Whitesides and Frances Kerry)
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