Boehner Renews Vow To Combat Executive Amnesty

House Speaker John Boehner is renewing a vow to take on President Obama’s executive amnesty.

“I said we’d fight it tooth and nail when we had new majorities in the House and Senate and I meant it,” Boehner told reporters Thursday.

House Republicans are expected to take up a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that will take on Obama’s executive amnesty as early as next week.

The Speaker argues that stopping the president’s unilateral actions are a priority.

“Republicans are in agreement that this is a gravely serious matter,” he said. “The president’s unilateral actions were an affront to the rule of law and our system of government. The American people don’t support it as their representatives cannot let it stand.”

Wednesday, DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson warned against continuing to fund the department on a short-term basis, especially in light of the recent terrorist attack in Paris. Johnson says that would put security at risk.

Boehner argues he does not think DHS’ funding is at risk, but agrees the House must act.

“The issue isn’t about funding the Department of Homeland Security. Members of Congress support funding the department but we cannot continue to allow the president to go around the Congress and go around the law and take unilateral action like he has,” he said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi charged that using the DHS funding bill to combat Obama’s executive actions would be “politics.”

“In the Homeland Security bill some of the resources that are there to protect the American people and if they want to play politics with it by contending that President Obama overstepped in what he did on immigration. It isn’t true. It isn’t true. He was acting under the law, he is acting under the law and he is acting in the matter that Republican presidents have,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press briefing Thursday.

According to Boehner, however, the House will move to stop Obama’s unilateral amnesty.

“The House is going to work its will,” he said. “The way the process works is once the House works its will the Senate will work its will. And then we’ll have options. We can go to conference, we can take the Senate bill, a lot of options available to us when we pass our bill we’ll see what the Senate can do with it and we’ll act.”