White House: Obama Would Veto House Border Bill

White House: Obama Would Veto House Border Bill

If the House’s supplemental border bill were to make it to President Obama’s desk, Obama senior advisors would urge him to veto it. 

In a statement of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget said it “strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 5230,” charging that the legislation would make the border crisis worse.

“Republicans have had more than a year to comprehensively fix the nation’s broken immigration system, but instead of working toward a real, lasting solution, Republicans released patchwork legislation that will only put more arbitrary and unrealistic demands on an already broken system,” the statement read. 

The administration argues that the bill would “create backlogs” that would result in a lack of resources to confront criminal immigrants. 

“By setting arbitrary timelines for the processing of cases, this bill could create backlogs that could ultimately shift resources away from priority public safety goals, like deporting known criminals,” the statement continued. “This bill will undercut due process for vulnerable children which could result in their removal to life-threatening situations in foreign countries. In addition, the limited resources provided in H.R. 5230 are not designated as emergency, but rather come at the expense of other government functions.”

The statement further noted that the supplemental appropriations legislation does not provide additional funding for wildfires or the Defense Department request for funding to support Israeli missile defense.

The White House also took issue with the fact that, “H.R. 5230 also waives important environmental protections for National Parks, National Monuments, and other public lands within 100 miles of the border for Customs and Border Protection activities.”

 The Administration urges the Congress to pass sensible and responsible legislation to address these pressing needs,” the statement concluded.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.