The White House criticized Republicans of the House of Representatives for complicating efforts to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the implementation of President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions.

White House Director of Domestic Policy Cecilia Muñoz said the amendments attached to the DHS funding bill are not relevant and prevents the pending executive actions on immigration Obama announced on Nov. 20, 2014. Muñoz also acknowledged the amendment introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., would reverse the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provided 600,000 undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation following criminal background checks, becoming taxpayers and receive work authorization.

"What the executive actions do by establishing enforcement priorities for removal is make sure that we can maximize our resources where they're going to have the most impact and removing folks who have committed serious crimes and removing folks who are recent arrivals at the border," Muñoz said.

"And the end result here is that the likelihood that someone attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, the likelihood that such a person will be apprehended and removed increased because of the actions that the President took that the Congress attempted to undo today."

Muñoz reiterated the Obama administration's intention to veto the current House's DHS funding bill with the immigration amendments.

She said, "[Obama is] going to remain focused on making sure that we enforce our immigration laws widely and well and in the most effective way possible, and that we continue to implement these executive actions which are aimed at fixing what the president can fix under his authority in terms of making progress on our broken immigration system."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske noted the importance for a "stable, secure and find" budget, since the CBP is an agency of the DHS.

"When you think about law enforcement agencies that need to protect their citizens, whether it's at the local level or whether it's at the level of Customs and Border Protection, having a budget in place that provides you the money that is needed for training, the money that's needed to equip the department and for the long-range planning is very important," Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske acknowledged the U.S. immigration system as "broken," and he based it from his experience as a police chief and from his colleagues. He added Obama's immigration executive actions provided steps to address the broken system.

"The clarity of these decisions and the movement forward has been particularly helpful. We have done a significant amount of training with our personnel. They understand and they recognize this. We are going to continue to do an outstanding job of securing the border, of protecting this country. We need the support of Congress with a full one-year budget package that helps me to lead, direct and manage this organization," Kerlikowske said.

As Latin Post reported, the House of Representatives passed the DHS funding bill (H.R. 240), but it included amendments to ease or freeze Obama's immigration executive actions.

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