Donnelly: House Needs to Do the Hard Work

Press Release

U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly released the following statement in advance of a Senate vote on a bill to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through September 30, 2015 and a vote on a proposal to roll back President Obama's executive actions from November 2014 that impact our nation's immigration policies.

"Here in the Senate we have reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the year. I urge the House to follow this responsible approach and pass this clean funding bill.

"Regarding President Obama's executive actions, I said in November that I did not think he should have acted unilaterally to make such significant policy changes to our immigration system. I also expressed concern about the impact his actions may have had on the potential for bipartisan immigration reform. The only way to really fix our immigration system is to change the law, and that requires Congress to pass legislation. For these reasons, I will be voting to roll back the president's executive actions from last year.

"However, for those like me who believe we need to reform our immigration system, make no mistake--we are in this position today because the members of the House of Representatives have failed to do their jobs. A bipartisan bill passed the Senate in 2013, but Republicans in the House have refused to consider any immigration reform bill. It is time for House Republicans to stop making excuses and do the hard work to fix our broken immigration system."

The Senate is expected to consider passing the DHS funding bill this morning, immediately followed by a procedural vote that would advance a proposal to roll back President Obama's executive actions from November 2014.

Following President Obama's announcement of executive actions related to immigration in November 2014, Donnelly said that the president shouldn't have made such significant policy changes on his own, noting that only Congress has the ability to change the law to fix our immigration system. In December 2014, Donnelly and Senator Heitkamp (D-ND) sent a letter to congressional leaders noting their disagreement with President Obama's decision to act unilaterally but also calling on them to work together to pass meaningful immigration reform as the Senate did in June 2013.

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