Updated at 2:13 p.m. ET
The House of Representatives could vote as early as today on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the budget year — without any restrictions on immigration. The vote would be a victory for President Obama as Republicans had wanted to strip funding for the president's executive actions on immigration from the bill.
In a closed-door meeting with rank-and-file Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, reportedly said the House is making the right decision, but he remained critical of Obama's action to temporarily block the deportation of millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
"I am as outraged and frustrated as you at the lawless and unconstitutional actions of this president," Boehner told his caucus, according to a source who was in the room.
He also alluded to the split with Republicans in the Senate, which voted last week to pass the measure, providing the agency with full funding through Sept. 30.
"As you've heard me say a number of times, the House has done its job by passing legislation to fund DHS and block the president's executive actions on immigration," he said, according to the source. "Unfortunately, the fight was never won in the other chamber. Democrats stayed united and blocked our bill, and our Republican colleagues in the Senate never found a way to win this fight."
Today's House bill is in line with the Senate measure that passed last week.
In a dramatic vote late last week, the House voted to approve the department's funding by one week. As Eyder and Bill reported:
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
