Intra-party Republican fighting over how to confront the White House on immigration reform spilled outside the bounds of Congress on Thursdaywhen prospective Republican presidential candidates accused their colleagues on Capitol Hill of surrendering on the issue.



Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas both used appearances at the Conservative Political Action Committee in National Harbor, Maryland, to decry what they called an imminent capitulation.

“You’ve got Republicans in Washington about to wave the white flag of surrender on amnesty,” said Jindal. “They’re about to wave the white flag of surrender on Obamacare. And we’re here to tell them: ‘We won’t stand for that’.”

He said “this election wasn’t about getting a nicer office for Senator Mitch McConnell,” referring to the Republican sweep of the November midterms, adding: “This election wasn’t about getting a bigger office for Speaker John Boehner. This election was about taking our country back.”

Ted Cruz says the Republican congressional leadership is ‘cutting a deal’ with the White House Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The battle over immigration reform shaped up after Democrats in the Senate stopped the body from taking up a House bill that blocked President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration as part of legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democratic leaders accused Republicans of holding homeland security funding hostage. Republicans said Democrats were using procedural maneuvers to avoid a vote on the issue.

The Senate seemed to be moving to act on Thursday evening on a new bill that would fund homeland security without touching, for the moment, the president’s immigration actions. Boehner said on Wednesday that he would wait for the Senate to act before discussing the next move in the House.



Without action in both bodies of Congress, funding for the Department of Homeland Security was set to expire at midnight Friday.

Jindal spoke in an afternoon session that followed a crowd-pleasing midday speech by Cruz, one of the runaway stars of the gathering of hard-right conservatives.

Cruz said the Republican congressional leadership was “cutting a deal” with the White House on “executive amnesty.”

“In Washington, K Street and Wall Street love amnesty, they support the substantive policy,” Cruz said. “There is a mendacity about Washington – they want to take a show vote, but they don’t actually want to follow through on what they say.”