Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) backs a clean Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill because his preferred option, a funding bill stipulating that President Obama could not implement his 2014 executive orders on immigration, was not taken up by Senate leadership.

“Friday’s the deadline? That strategy made sense to me but that train’s probably left the station,” Graham told National Review Online to explain the change in his position. “If you could get a [continuing resolution] then you could it that way, that would be fine with me, but I don’t want Friday to come and not have this issue resolved.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) argued during a GOP lunch two weeks ago that the Senate should focus on the 2014 executive orders, rather than including language opposing the 2012 orders in the DHS bill, as the House had done. Support for the proposal was “wide and deep,” a senator told NRO after the lunch.

The legislation was never brought to the floor as a stand-alone item, though, even as Republicans made public statements in support of such an idea. “I was always wondering myself about that myself,” Graham told NRO Tuesday.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said that he didn’t call up such a bill because, when he offered to offer the identical legislation as the first amendment to the House-passed bill, Democrats objected.

“So, we already know the outcome of that,” the spokesman said. “The outcome of this one we don’t know yet because Democrats have said, if you take out the funding. I support what you’re doing.”

Collins backed McConnell’s proposal to pass a clean DHS bill and vote on separate legislation targeting just the 2014 orders, noting that a federal judge has already blocked implementation of the most recent orders.

“The court order is very consistent with my position because it leaves standing the 2012 executive order that protects the DREAMers, which was far more targeted, but invalidates the sweeping comprehensive executive order that was issued last November,” she told reporters on Tuesday.