In the nearly two weeks since President Obama announced he would protect millions of deeply rooted immigrants from deportation, conservatives have been impressively obtuse about how they hope to respond and whether they'll try to shut down the government again.

Republicans had hoped to use regular spending legislation—which must pass before the government shuts down on December 11—to fund all of the government aside from Obama’s deportation relief program. But just as the right’s plan to defund the Affordable Care Act in 2013 ran up against the small problem that Obamacare isn't really dependent on annual appropriations, Obama’s deportation program is also largely on autopilot. Even a government shutdown won’t stop it from taking effect.

As in 2013, the only way to stop the dreaded Obamnesty is by prohibiting the government from implementing it. And as in 2013, there’s no way—even under the threat of a government shutdown—Obama will sign such a measure into law. Hal Rogers, the House Republicans’ top appropriator, has tried in vain to spell out this basic point to his conservative colleagues.

“[T]he Appropriations process cannot be used to 'de-fund' the [relevant] agency,” he explained in a pre-Thanksgiving statement. “The agency has the ability to continue to collect and use fees to continue current operations, and to expand operations as under a new Executive Order, without needing legislative approval by the Appropriations Committee or the Congress, even under a continuing resolution or a government shutdown.”

The right isn't buying it. Conservatives are convinced that Rogers is lying or hiding the ball or simply mistaken about the appropriations process. Citing a banal restatement of Congress’ legislative powers, the conservative website Breitbart concluded that Rogers “is wrong, and that Congress can in fact block funding for President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty order.”