Internal divisions aside, what should be unifying Republicans is opposition to President Obama’s lawless power grab.

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With a March 1 deadline looming, it’s up to Senate Republicans to corral enough votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security before it goes into a temporary shutdown.

At least, that’s the message coming from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

“You know, in the gift shop out here, they’ve got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law,” Boehner said during a Wednesday press conference at the Capitol. “The House has done its job! Why don’t you go ask the Senate Democrats when they’re going to get off their ass and do something?!”

Boehner is referring to legislation the Republican-controlled House passed to fund DHS and other immigration-related agencies, while at the same time prohibiting any of them from using the money to implement President Barack Obama’s unilateral actions to grant de facto amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

The message coming from Boehner and other House Republicans is simple: The House has done its job. It’s time for the Senate to act.

So far, the new Senate Republican leadership has attempted to bring up the House bill for a vote three times, but each time has failed to get the 60 votes necessary. In the byzantine world of Senate procedure, it takes 60 votes to consider a law, but only 51 to pass it. With only 54 Senate Republicans, GOP leadership needs six Senate Democrats to break ranks.

One idea being floated by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) is to water down the House bill. As passed, the House bill would prohibit immigration agencies from (1) continuing to implement Obama’s temporary amnesty for illegal immigrants who arrived as children (DACA), and (2) beginning to implement Obama’s directive to grant work permits to illegally present adults. Collins is proposing to leave intact the DACA program while prohibiting the more recent work permits authorization.

This idea does little more than empower Senate Democrats by exposing the rift inside the GOP over immigration. Moderates like Collins would probably support a pathway to citizenship for DACA beneficiaries. Conservatives like Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) insist on securing the border before any type of legalization.

Democrats are having a field day.

“Neither Speaker Boehner nor [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell appears willing to do the right thing and stand up to the extremists in their caucus like Senator Ted Cruz,” said Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “The Republican Congress is a mess, pure and simple. Democrats are happy to help our Republican colleagues resolve their problems but the first step is for Republican leaders to do the right thing and pass a clean bill to fund Homeland Security.”

Internal divisions aside, what should be unifying Republicans is opposition to President Obama’s lawless power grab. If left unchallenged, Obama’s unilateral move to effectively legalize millions of immigrants could permanently alter the balance of power between Congress and the presidency.

Time is running out.

Last week, the Center for Immigration Studies revealed a “parallel immigration system” being run by the Obama administration in violation of the laws passed by Congress. This week, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services announced plans to allow tens of thousands of children who arrived from Central America last summer to stay. Like Obama’s directives, neither of these has been approved by Congress.

If Democrats still controlled the United States Senate no one seriously believes that they would let the Republican minority obfuscate them into submission. The best place to make the case for the rule of law is to the American people directly. As Congress prepares to go on recess for a week to celebrate Presidents Day, now would be a good time to hold town hall meetings with constituents back home. A groundswell of opposition to lawless executive action needs to be unleashed.

It’s now or never.