Senate Blocks Trump's Plan to End Shutdown and Fund Border Wall
(Bloomberg) -- The Senate blocked President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the 34-day partial government shutdown and fund a border wall -- with a second vote following soon on a rival plan by Democrats that may also fall short.
The 51-47 vote Thursday, with 60 needed, failed to advance a GOP measure based on Trump’s plan to spend $5.7 billion on a border wall and temporarily protect some young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The Senate is voting next on a Democratic measure, already passed by the House, that would reopen the closed agencies until Feb. 8 to allow time for negotiations on a border security plan. While that bill may fail to get enough support to advance, it may pick up some GOP backing because it’s the remaining alternative to reopen the government. The White House has said Trump would veto the measure.
"We will not Cave!" Trump tweeted a few hours before the votes.
These are the first votes the Senate has taken on funding the government since the shutdown began Dec. 22. Now the longest closure in modern U.S. history, it led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel Trump’s planned Jan. 29 State of the Union address in her chamber until the government reopens. The Treasury Department, Department of Homeland Security and Environmental Protection Agency are closed as Trump fights for his 2016 campaign promise to build a wall at the border with Mexico.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called Trump’s plan a “pragmatic compromise that could end this impasse right away" by getting the president’s signature. He said the Democrats’ temporary measure creates the possibility of a new crisis in several weeks when funding expires.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s proposal is a "harshly partisan" plan that would give the president all he wants before reopening the government. The Democratic proposal, which the Senate had passed in December, would reopen federal agencies and allow time for negotiations over border security, he said.
The pain inflicted by the shutdown is “getting deeper and deeper every day,” with 800,000 federal employees set to miss another paycheck on Friday, Schumer said.
Trump’s proposal faced strong objections from Democrats who oppose the wall and the plan’s changes in immigration law, including new limits on asylum claims by Central American minors.
The Trump bill would ban people under age 18 from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras from receiving asylum in the U.S. unless they apply at a processing center in Central America. That means they can’t apply in the U.S. if they fled their home countries due to gang violence, as many have done.
In an effort to gain Democratic votes, the Trump proposal included three-year work permits for young undocumented people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Similar protection would be given to people from countries like El Salvador and Haiti who live and work in the U.S legally because of civil turmoil or natural disasters in those countries.Trump has sought to end both programs.
However, the DACA extension would leave out hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. It would protect only those already enrolled in the program, and not other young immigrants who might be eligible.
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