US shutdown fears back as wall talks stall
Parties at odds over beds for migrant detainees
Talks on border security funding collapsed after Democratic and Republican legislators clashed over immigrant detention policy as they worked to avert another US government shutdown, a Republican senator said on Sunday US time.
“The talks are stalled right now,” Republican senator Richard Shelby told Fox News. He said the impasse was over Democrats’ desire to cap the number of beds in detention facilities for people who enter the country illegally.
Efforts to resolve the dispute over border security funding extended into the weekend as a special congressional negotiating panel worked on its aim to reach a deal by Monday, legislators and aides said.
Democratic senator Jon Tester played down any breakdown in talks. “It is a negotiation. Negotiations seldom go smoothly all the way through,” he told the Fox programme. Tester, one of 17 negotiators, said he was hopeful a deal could be reached.
But Shelby put the chances of reaching a deal by Monday at 50-50. No further talks were scheduled, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The legislators hoped to have an agreement by Monday to allow time for the legislation to pass the US House of Representatives and Senate and get signed by President Donald Trump by Friday, when funding for the department of homeland security and other federal agencies expires.
Trump agreed on January 25 to end a 35-day partial US government shutdown without getting the $5.7bn he had demanded from Congress for a wall along the border with Mexico, handing a political victory to the Democrats.
Instead, a three-week spending deal was reached with congressional leaders to give legislators time to resolve their disagreements about how to deal with security issues along the border.
One sticking point has been the Democrats’ demand for funding fewer detention beds for people arrested by US immigration and customs enforcement agents. Republicans want to increase the number as part of their drive to speed immigrant deportations.
Since he ran for president in 2016, Trump has pledged to stop the influx of undocumented immigrants by building a wall on the border and crack down on immigrants living in the US illegally by aggressively conducting more deportations. Democrats proposed lowering the cap on detention beds to 35,520 from the current 40,520 in return for giving Republicans some of the money they want for physical barriers, the source familiar with negotiations said.
But Democrats would create a limit within that cap of 16,500 beds at detention facilities for undocumented immigrants apprehended in the US interior. The remainder would be at border detention centres.
By having the interior cap, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents would be forced to focus on arresting and deporting serious criminals, not law-abiding immigrants, a House Democratic aide said.
Republicans baulked at the Democrats’ subcap offer, the source said.
Trump weighed in on Sunday, saying the Democratic proposal would protect felons. “They are offering very little money for the desperately needed border wall and now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention!” Trump said on Twitter.
“Claims that this proposal would allow violent criminals to be released are false,” the Democratic aide said.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who is close to Trump, warned against limiting beds. “Donald Trump is not going to sign any legislation that reduces the bed spaces. You can take that to the bank,” he said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
Legislators working on a border deal also have not yet nailed down the amount of money to go for physical barriers along the southern US border, the source said.
While a growing number of Republicans in Congress have made it clear they would not embrace another shutdown, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said he could not rule it out.
“You absolutely cannot,” Mulvaney, who is also Trump’s acting chief of staff, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “Is a shutdown entirely off the table? The answer is no.”
Legislators, however, were working to avoid it.
On Friday some of the negotiators said that if Congress could not pass a border security bill by Friday, they would move to pass another stop-gap funding bill to avert a shutdown and allow more time to reach a border deal.
DONALD TRUMP IS NOT GOING TO SIGN ANY LEGISLATION THAT REDUCES THE BED SPACES. YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK