Donovan Slack

Gannett Wisconsin Media Washington bureau

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin members of Congress on both sides of the aisle reacted strongly Thursday to President Barack Obama's announcement that he is signing an executive order protecting from deportation some 5 million of the immigrants living in the country illegally and granting them permission to work here legally.

Democrats, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, praised the move, saying Obama – and the immigrants – couldn't sit around and wait any longer for Congress to overhaul the immigration system.

"The status quo is simply unacceptable," Baldwin said.

Republicans excoriated Obama for bypassing Congress and going it alone.

"It's very unfortunate that President Obama chose to – again, it was a choice he made – to really start out his relationship with the new Congress by picking a fight," Sen. Ron Johnson said. "This president unfortunately decided to poke a stick in our eye right off the bat."

Congress has no power to stop the president from signing the order and little power to eliminate direct funding for its implementation. Senior House Republicans conceded Thursday that the key agency responsible for carrying out most of the order, Citizenship and Immigration Services, is funded through application fees, not through Congress.

But that isn't stopping Republicans from seeking other means to respond to the order. They are contemplating a number of options, including cutting the budget for the White House as a whole or imposing conditions that would require Obama to go through an onerous regulatory process to implement the order.

Green Bay-area Rep. Reid Ribble and other Republican House members from Wisconsin signaled they will not push for something as drastic as impeachment and likely will not withhold funding from the entire federal government when it expires Dec 11, which would trigger another shutdown. But they are determined to do something.

"I think there has to be a response because I think many of us believe that the president is exceeding -- and quite frankly, he has said so more than 20 times himself -- that he can't do what he's about to do," Ribble said. "And so there will be a response from the House. Now, I hope it'll be reasoned; it'll be thoughtful."

Obama's order allows the parents of U.S. citizens and those with permanent resident status as green card holders to apply for the temporary protected status. They would have to register with the federal government, pay a fee, have their fingerprints taken, go through a criminal background check and provide proof their children were born before Thursday.

The order also expands the protection from deportation he gave a few years ago to people under 31 years of age brought here illegally by their parents before June 2007. Now there is no age limit and the deferred deportation would cover those who arrived here before January 2010.

White House officials say Obama could not wait any longer, noting that Congress has not passed a measure to address the issue in the six years he has been in office. And in the meantime, deportations continue, and families have been torn apart.

The Senate passed a bill in June 2013 that would have beefed up border security and created a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but the House refused to take it up or pass its own measure. In June, Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Janesville, who had been pushing for overhaul legislation in the House, declared it dead.

Ryan's office issued a statement suggesting that Obama's order would make any potential progress on legislation even more difficult.

"The president's decision to issue this executive order is a stunning act of partisanship and polarization," he said. "Clearly, he is more interested in playing politics than helping hard-working taxpayers."

Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, is retiring at the end of this year after 35 years in Congress and so may not be in Washington to witness all the political fireworks that may ensue, but he hinted that Obama's legal standing for the order may by shaky.

"It sounds like the president is skating on thin ice," he said. "A far wiser strategy would be to at least try and work with the new Congress on immigration reform rather than poisoning the well before it even starts."

Rep. Sean Duffy, R- Wausau, echoed those sentiments in an interview with CNN Thursday.

"The president should wait, give the new Congress enough time to work its will, see if we can come up with a bill," he said. "But if he goes this way, we're going to set this new Congress off on the wrong foot."

"I think it's going to tear the country apart at the seams, and as a president who has come and told the American people that he's going to be a uniter, all of his actions are tearing the country apart."

While he and others in the House are looking for ways to respond to the president, over in the Senate, some lawmakers like Johnson are already fixated on replacing the order with a law passed by Congress.

Johnson, who will oversee the Senate committee governing homeland security, said he has already been working on potential legislation.

"Regardless of what he does, regardless of what the House's reaction will be -- because they're going to lead the way for Republicans – I'm going to continue to pursue my No. 1 priority, which really is crafting and then bringing up and hopefully passing a very strong border security and enforcement bill," Johnson said.

Democratic Reps. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee and Rep. Ron Kind of La Crosse said there is still time for congressional action. Kind said major components of the order will not take effect immediately.

"Now, all eyes should be on Congress to take action when there is such a clear need for reform," he said.

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