Here’s a look back, over the course of one year, at the events that led to the brink of a government shutdown, with immigration and spending as the main drivers.
Jan. 20, 2017
President Trump tells Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, at the Inauguration luncheon on Capitol Hill not to worry about the Dreamers, young, undocumented immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States as children. “We’re going to take care of those kids,” Mr. Trump said.
Spring of 2017
Jared Kushner holds weeks of private meetings and phone conversations with Mr. Durbin about the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which shielded young immigrants from deportation and offered them a chance to work, study or serve in the military. The meetings culminated in a dinner at Mr. Kushner’s house with Mr. Durbin and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Stephen Miller, the president’s hard-line domestic policy adviser. The talks go nowhere.
Sept. 5, 2017
The president officially ends the DACA program. Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, says the program “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.” Mr. Trump calls on Congress to act.
Sept. 6, 2017
Mr. Trump strikes bipartisan deal to increase the debt limit and keep the government open until mid-December and tells Democrats that he wants to do something to help the Dreamers. “Chuck and Nancy would like to see something happen, and so do I,” the president said.
Sept. 13, 2017
The president has dinner with “Chuck and Nancy” in the Blue Room of the White House and discussed a possible deal in which Congress would legalize Dreamers in exchange for border security. The two Democrats left the dinner and declared they had reached “a deal” with the president.
Continue reading the main storySept. 14, 2017
Conservatives recoil at the idea of Mr. Trump embracing what they call amnesty for lawbreakers. The White House says that no deal was reached. Trump tweets: “No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent” and says that would include “the wall.”
Oct. 1, 2017
New fiscal year begins without Congress passing any of the 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund the government. The government is now operating on stopgap spending bills that maintain spending at the previous year’s levels. Funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program is allowed to lapse.
Oct. 8, 2017
The White House delivers to Congress a long list of immigration demands — many of which have been opposed by Democrats for decades — that would have to be met before Mr. Trump would support legislation making the Dreamers legal. Democrats denounce the “immigration priorities,” saying they are designed to kill any legislation.
Dec. 7, 2017
Democrats agree to a two-week, stopgap spending measure that does not include legislation to legalize Dreamers, giving lawmakers more time to try to work out a bipartisan compromise on the immigration issue.
Dec. 20, 2017
Democrats and Republicans agree to another stopgap spending measure without DACA legislation, after securing a promise from Republican leaders to consider the immigration legislation if a bipartisan compromise is reached after the first of the year. Some Democrats are angry, saying they should have held out on behalf of the Dreamers.
Jan. 9, 2018
In an extraordinary, hourlong meeting in the White House Cabinet Room that was played in full on television, Mr. Trump discusses immigration and DACA with lawmakers from both parties and appears to embrace the idea of a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants. He also narrows the parameters of a DACA deal. “My head is spinning,” Mr. Durbin says after the meeting.
Jan. 11, 2018
A bipartisan group of senators announce they have reached a deal on immigration legislation that would legalize Dreamers, add to border security, end the diversity visa lottery, and address temporary protected status for Haitians and others in the United States because of disasters. “We have been working for four months and have reached an agreement in principle,” a statement from the senators said.
Jan. 11, 2018
Later, in an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Durbin and Mr. Graham to discuss their compromise legislation, Mr. Trump grows angry and derides African nations as “shithole countries” and disparages Haiti. Conservative lawmakers in the meeting insist he did not use the vulgarity, but Mr. Durbin publicly says that he did. The president eventually denies it.
Jan. 18, 2018
House passes one-month, stopgap spending measure without addressing DACA. Senate Democrats unite around demands that any spending bill must protect the Dreamers, expand federal intervention in the opioid crisis, assist hurricane-battered Puerto Rico, and include an agreement on a longer-term budget deal that raises strict spending caps on military and nonmilitary spending.
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