U.S. House to vote on security bill without immigration provisions

(Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner cleared the way for a vote as soon as Tuesday on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year, dealing a blow to conservative Republicans who wanted to include language blocking President Barack Obama's immigration actions.

If successful, the vote would end a legislative standoff that began late last year over security funding and Obama's immigration actions, which have been put on hold by the courts.

Spending authority for the department that spearheads domestic counter terrorism operations ends at midnight on Friday.

Boehner was left with few if any viable procedural options to continue the fight over Obama's executive actions that last year bypassed Congress to lift the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented residents.

Obama and Democrats have backed a so-called clean funding bill passed by the Senate, and Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked a House-passed bill that includes the immigration provisions.

On Friday, the House rejected a three-week funding extension and voted to keep the lights on at the agency for one week to give them more time to work out a strategy for battling Obama's immigration actions.

Boehner told Republican House members at a meeting on Tuesday that it was time to allow a vote on the "clean" Senate bill.

"The Speaker made the case that he had hoped to continue to fight for three more weeks. Obviously we didn’t win that vote last week, so we are where we are," said Representative Luke Messer, who chairs the Republican Policy Committee.

"It’s disappointing. I had hoped we’d be able to continue to fight," he said.

Boehner will allow Democrats to use a procedural motion to bring up the Senate’s funding bill, which is expected to pass the House with support from moderate Republicans and House Democrats. Obama has said he would sign it.

The bill provides nearly $40 billion in funding for the agency, created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that secures U.S. borders, airports, coastal waters and other critical facilities.

Without the funding, the agency would be forced to furlough about 30,000 employees, or about 15 percent of the workforce, but about 200,000 others would have stayed on the job without pay, including airport and border security agents.

Boehner suffered an embarrassing setback last week when conservatives rebelled against his plan for a three-week extension, but some conservatives said they did not think his ultimate failure on the issue would threaten his leadership.

"I think anybody who’s been watching this knew this is where we were going to end up back in December," said Representative Thomas Massie, a conservative Republican from Kentucky.

(Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Grant McCool)

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