Shutdown looms as talks stall
United States
The nation faces the possibility of another government shutdown at the end of the week, after bipartisan talks aimed at averting that outcome broke down in a dispute over immigration enforcement, lawmakers and aides say.
President Donald Trump’s border wall demands, which precipitated the 35-day shutdown that ended last month, were a secondary issue in the impasse that developed over the weekend, according to officials in both parties. Instead, after looking promising for days, the negotiations collapsed over Democrats’ insistence on limiting the number of unauthorised immigrants who can be detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
‘‘I think the talks are stalled right now,’’ Senate Appropriations chairman Richard Shelby, of Alabama, the lead Republican negotiator, said. ‘‘I’m not confident we’re going to get there.’’
The stalemate left the path forward unclear.
The Homeland Security Department along with State, Agriculture, Commerce and other federal agencies are operating on a stopgap spending bill that Trump signed on January 25. There’s little appetite for another short-term funding extension, but without some action by midnight on February 15, those agencies will run out of money and begin to shut down again.
Another funding lapse could affect many Americans within days, because one of the agencies that would go unfunded during the shutdown is the IRS, which is processing tax returns for millions of people. During the shutdown that began in late December, thousands of IRS officials refused to show up for work without pay.
Lawmakers on the 17-member conference committee had been trading offers over how much money could go to barriers along the Us-mexico border, and were looking at between $1.3 billion (NZ$1.9B) and $2b – far short of the $5.7b Trump had demanded. The White House had begun to signal flexibility on that issue.
But throughout the talks, Democrats had also been focused on limiting ICE’S ability to detain unauthorised immigrants, which has become a major issue for the party because of their opposition to the Trump administration’s aggressive detention tactics. The Democrats’ proposal included a new limit on detention beds for immigrants picked up not at the border, but in the interior of the country.
Democrats wanted to cap that at 16,500. Republicans want to exclude a range of immigrants from the cap – people convicted of, or charged with, a variety of crimes, ranging from violent felonies to minor drug offences.
But Democrats said that would make the cap toothless, because it would allow ICE to round up numerous people who don’t have criminal records and hold an unlimited number of people who, in some cases, have been charged with misdemeanours.
White House officials have become increasingly confident that by declaring a national emergency, Trump will be able to redirect billions of dollars in other federal funding to be used for a wall or barriers. One scenario they had prepared for was for Congress to pass a bill appropriating money for border security and then use the national emergency declaration to loosen even more funds. This could draw legal challenges from Democrats, landowners and other groups.
A total breakdown in talks poses a new set of challenges. It dramatically increases the odds of another partial government shutdown beginning at the weekend. This would prevent 800,000 federal workers from being paid indefinitely. –
‘‘I think the talks are stalled right now. I’m not confident we’re going to get there.’’ lead Republican negotiator Richard Shelby