The Hill — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to bring to the Senate floor next week a House-passed bill reversing President Obama’s executive actions shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation.
The House attached policy riders unwinding the orders to a $40 billion bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
McConnell said the Senate will consider it next week after finishing work on legislation approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
“We’re hoping to be able to finish that bill by the end of the week, and then, once Keystone is completed, we’ll go to DHS, [it] will be the next in the lineup in the Senate,” he said.
McConnell declined to say whether the Homeland Security funding bill would be open to amendments, or whether it would undergo a markup in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“All I can tell you right now is we’re going to the DHS bill after we finish Keystone. The procedure by which we deal with that will be determined later,” he said.
Senior Democratic aides say the legislation will not muster the 60 votes it needs to overcome a filibuster.
Some Republicans said last week that legislation placing sanctions on Iran could reach the floor before the Homeland Security bill. McConnell clarified the Iran bill will come up later.
“We’re hoping to get a bill out of the Banking Committee, and when that happens, it will be on the calendar, and we will make a decision about the actual timing of it,” he said of the Iran legislation. “But my understanding is that Chairman [Richard] Shelby [R-Ala.] hopes to move that measure out of the committee some time very soon.”
