Dem on DHS fight: ‘Jon Stewart can’t write that stuff that good’

Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) argued Wednesday that Republicans’ push to revoke President Obama’s executive actions on immigration through a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security gave comedian Jon Stewart plenty of material.

The agency handling the implementation of Obama’s executive actions to delay deportations of certain illegal immigrants is funded through application fees rather than congressional appropriations. Even if a DHS shutdown had occurred, funding for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would not have been affected.

{mosads}A shutdown would, however, have forced DHS employees like border patrol agents to work without pay. But the Texas court ruling last month has temporarily halted the 2014 executive actions.

“Think about it. It is as if the Republicans were saying they are so upset about their obsession with border security and their conviction that the president is not doing enough about border security that they were willing to defund border security in order to make their point,” Gutiérrez said in a House floor speech.

“Jon Stewart can’t write that stuff that good. He doesn’t have to,” Gutiérrez said.

Stewart, host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, has already lampooned the DHS funding fight on his show, making the same point as Gutiérrez in a segment titled “The Chronicles of Gridlock.”

In the end, the House cleared legislation on Tuesday to fund the DHS without any provisions to undo Obama’s executive actions. Only 75 Republicans joined all Democrats to push the measure to passage, while all 167 votes against came from the GOP.