Budget OK, immigration fight looks tougher

They can all claim wins in the big budget agreement: President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans and Democrats, too. Next up, however, is a Senate immigration battle that may well lead nowhere, complicated by divisions within parties rubbed raw by the spending pact plus election-year pressures that always make compromise challenging.

In Washington’s latest embarrassing display of governance by brinkmanship, a bipartisan accord bolstering military and domestic programs by $400 billion and deepening federal deficits became law Friday — but not before the government technically shut down.

In what amounts to an achievement these days, lawmakers limited the overnight closure to less than nine hours — the time between when agencies technically ran out of money at midnight and Trump’s morning signing of the bill. It was the government’s second shutdown in three weeks, following the January’s three-day closure when Senate Democrats demanding legislation shielding young “Dreamer” immigrants from deportation blocked a bill keeping agencies open.

This time, Senate passage was delayed until after midnight when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., stalled the vote to protest Congress’ willingness to drive up deficits. Paul said he hoped his stand would teach conservatives “to not accept just anything because it comes from a GOP Congress,” but House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the brief shutdown “entirely needless.”

The budget measure provides Pentagon spending increases sought by Trump and the GOP, more money for domestic agencies demanded by Democrats and $89 billion that both wanted for disaster relief. The two-year pact, which also continues the government’s authority to borrow money, postpones any possible federal default or likely shutdowns until after the November elections.

But the 652-page budget bill says nothing about protecting the Dreamer immigrants, and that largely explains why a quarter of Senate Democrats and a third of House Democrats voted no. Passage left Democrats with little leverage to force congressional action on preventing deportation of hundreds of thousands of the young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and remain here without permanent legal protection.

“Democrats have fought hard but, in the end, many opted to say yes to other priorities and leave Dreamers behind,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigration America’s Voice. He called that decision plus opposition by many Republicans “inhumane and indecent.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., set next Monday as the start of a free-wheeling immigration battle, a debate he promised when Democrats agreed to vote to reopen the government last month. Ryan hasn’t scheduled House consideration, infuriating Democrats, but he said Friday, “We will focus on bringing that debate to this floor and finding a solution.”

Democrats want to extend the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which lets the immigrants temporarily live and work in the U.S. but that Trump would end March 5. The Democrats also want to make the immigrants eligible for citizenship or permanent residence.

In exchange, Trump wants $25 billion to build his beloved, proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall and other barriers. He also wants reductions in legal immigration, including limiting the relatives whom legal residents can sponsor and eliminating a lottery that offers visas to residents of diverse countries.

JOSE LUIS MAGANA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., walks to his office, Friday at Capitol Hill in Washington.