As clock ticks on shutdown, talks stall over compromise
Trump hints at accepting partial payment for wall, but Democrats reluctant
WASHINGTON— Bargainers clashed Sunday over whether to limit the number of migrants U.S. authorities can detain, tossing a new hurdle before negotiators hoping to strike a border security compromise for Congress to pass this coming week.
The White House wouldn’t rule out a renewed partial government shutdown if an agreement isn’t reached.
With the Friday deadline approaching, the two sides remained separated by hundreds of millions of dollars over how much to spend to construct President Donald Trump’s promised border wall. But rising to the fore was a related dispute over curbing Customs and Immigration Enforcement, or ICE, the federal agency that Republicans see as an emblem of tough immigration policies and Democrats accuse of often going too far.
Acting White House Chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in appearances on NBC’s Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday, said “you absolutely cannot” eliminate the possibility of another shutdown if a deal is not reached over the wall and other border matters. The White House wants $5.7 billion (U.S.), a figure rejected by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and the mood among bargainers has soured, according to people familiar with the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly.
“You cannot take a shutdown off the table, and you cannot take $5.7 billion off the table,” Mulvaney told NBC, “but if you end up someplace in the middle, yeah, then what you probably see is the president say, ‘Yeah, OK, and I’ll go find the money someplace else.’”
A deal seemed to stall even after Mulvaney convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at Camp David. While the two sides seemed close to clinching a deal late last week, significant gaps remain and momentum appears to have slowed. Though congressional Democratic aides asserted that the dispute had caused the talks to break off, it was initially unclear how damaging the rift was.