The goal for Republicans is to keep government open, but to "shut down" President Barack Obama's attempt to bypass Congress with his executive order on immigration, Rep. Mike McCaul told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Friday.
Threats of a government shutdown have been circulating, often from Democrats, who could be looking for a repeat from previous shutdowns that resulted in damage to the Republican Party politically.
"We want to be constructive. We want to keep the government open, but we want to shut down this president, as it comes to this granting of amnesty to 5 million people. This needs to be stopped," the Texas Republican said Friday. "We have tools under the Constitution to stop what the president is trying to do."
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McCaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said Republicans would likely use the "power of the purse" to control funding that could thwart implementation of Obama's executive order. Beyond that, he predicted "there will be lawsuits" over the executive order that would allow the courts to "decide the constitutionality of this."
Since "the ball is in our court," McCain predicted "one of the first bills you'll see out of the box in the new Congress" would be legislation he sponsored to secure the border. Without that, he said it was difficult to "talk intelligently about immigration reform, as long as waves of illegals are coming in the country."
"I think we need a smart border that is secure. My bill will accomplish that," he said. "We'll come out with some reform bills, and I think we're going to set our own agenda."
McCaul said an official with the State Department told him they were concerned about traffickers "messaging and twisting" Obama's executive order, leading to "more and more Central Americans" crossing the southern U.S. border.
It is estimated 90,000 immigrant minors, often unaccompanied by parents, crossed illegally into the U.S. from Mexico during the past year.
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