Impasse over immigration

Senate stuck over bill funding Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON — Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared a Senate stalemate Tuesday over immigration provisions attached to a Homeland Security spending bill, and called on the House to make the next move to avoid an agency shutdown.

House Republicans said they had no intention of doing so, leaving Congress at an impasse with no clear way forward barely two weeks before the agency’s $40 billion budget shuts off.

“I can tell you I think it’s clearly stuck in the Senate,” McConnell, RKy., told reporters after a closed-door lunch of Senate Republicans. “And the next step is obviously up to the House.”

Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, responded with a statement seeking to put the focus on Senate Democrats. Democrats voted three times last week to block a Housepassed bill that would fund the department for the remainder of the budget year but overturn Pres- ident Barack Obama’s executive actions limiting deportations for millions in the U.S. illegally.

“Until there is some signal from those Senate Democrats what would break their filibuster, there’s little point in additional House action,” Steel said.

Democrats say they can’t accept the bill unless the contentious immigration measure is removed.

The impasse comes with Homeland Security funding set to expire Feb. 27 without action by Congress. The most likely outcome may be a shortterm extension of current funding levels. But Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is urging Congress to avoid such a stopgap measure because it would prevent the agency from going forward with planned initiatives that include improvements at the Secret Service and new security technology on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I’m urging every member of Congress that I can meet, Democrat and Republican, to figure out a way to break this impasse so I can get a fully funded bill by Feb. 27,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday on the way out of a meeting with senators.

The fight over immigration and the Homeland Security spending bill is the first major test for Re- publicans since taking full control of Congress in January for the first time in eight years. With Republicans six votes shy of the 60 needed to advance most legislation in the Senate, they say there’s little they can do if Democrats won’t budge.

“The Democrats are filibustering it. I don’t know how we get blamed for that this time,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “Everybody knows it takes 60 votes to do anything.”

House Republicans, for their part, are increasingly frustrated that even with the Senate is in GOP hands, they are still being asked to fold to Democratic demands.