WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans on Tuesday seized on a federal judge’s ruling against President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, saying the judge’s preliminary conclusions bolstered their fight to block the president’s moves by holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, Texas, ordered a halt to Mr. Obama’s executive actions late Monday, ruling that a coalition of 26 states had the legal grounds to challenge programs that would provide work permits to as many as five million people and protect them from deportation.
Republican lawmakers could argue that the federal courts will end up doing what the party is trying to do with its showdown over Homeland Security funding, potentially freeing Congress to fund the department without restrictions. But in a series of coordinated statements on Tuesday, Republican leaders in Congress and officials at conservative organizations showed no sign of relenting.
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Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, has expressed misgivings about the president’s executive actions. But Jonathan Kott, a spokesman for Mr. Manchin, said the senator “still believes that we should pass a clean D.H.S. funding bill.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the House speaker, John A. Boehner, signaled that he was willing to let funding for the agency lapse — allowing for a shutdown — if the Senate was unable to pass the House’s bill.
