Shutdown Talks Center on Finding a Barrier All Sides Can Like
Congress Starts Border Talks Aimed at Averting Feb. 15 Shutdown
(Bloomberg) -- Members of Congress began negotiations Wednesday on averting a second government shutdown with the outcome riding on a key question: Whether there’s a border barrier that Democrats can live with and President Donald Trump will accept.
The meeting produced no breakthroughs but both sides hinted that they may be able to agree on some form of fencing as part of a larger package of border improvements.
“Our Border Patrol tells us that they need physical barriers to help them do their job,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby said as a bipartisan conference committee held its first meeting on border security. "Not from coast to coast, but strategically placed where traffic is highest."
House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey said Democrats will press for "smart border security," which she said is "not overly reliant on physical barriers, which the Trump administration has failed to demonstrate are cost-effective compared to better technology and more personnel."
House Democrats outlined a plan at the meeting that includes new personnel and technology but no funds for new barriers or fencing. It also lacks a price tag. Still, Lowey told reporters after the meeting, "Everything is on the table."
Congress must break the logjam over border security to pass new spending bills for about one-fourth of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and avoid a second shutdown. Current funds run out after Feb. 15.
Trump views a wall on the Mexican border as so central to his presidency that he forced a five-week partial government shutdown to demand $5.7 billion in funding for it. But the president also has expressed willingness to consider a barrier short of a concrete wall.
‘Wasting their time!’
"If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!" the president wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.
Later in the day, Trump told the Daily Caller it was “highly unlikely” that the White House would be willing to discuss offering protection to those brought to the country illegally as children as part of the negotiations. During the shutdown, Democrats rejected a White House offer to extend an Obama-era program for so-called Dreamers for three years in exchange for Trump’s full $5.7 billion border wall demand.
Trump also said he saw a significant role for the White House in the ongoing negotiations, saying “without our involvement, a deal is not going to get done.”
Democrats agreed to fund $650 million for new border barriers in 2018, and 10 Senate Democrats backed a 2019 spending package including $1.6 billion for barriers during a committee vote last year.
Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a committee member, said the biggest issues dividing Republicans and Democrats are clear.
“We don’t disagree on technology," she said. "We don’t disagree on manpower or personnel. We disagree on whether a physical barrier is important to impeding illegal immigration.”
“I believe in a barrier. But not everywhere," said Capito of West Virginia. "That was one good thing from today. There had been a political message that the president wants a barrier ‘from sea to shining sea.’ Well, we didn’t hear that today.”
Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard of California said House Democrats’ comprehensive border security plan will include 1,000 more customs officers at ports of entry, new imaging technology, mail-processing equipment to detect opioids, expanded air and marine operations, and alternatives to immigrant detention.
Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said before the meeting that there were signs, particularly from House Democrats, "that they are willing to put a pretty big number on the table. We need to figure out how to define that number so it’s a number the president can work with.”
“I believe we need a physical barrier” where it would be effective, said House Republican Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee. "But that’s only one part of it."
GOP Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota said a deal needs to include three elements: More personnel, better technology and a barrier.
“To get to an agreement we’ve got have all three,” Hoeven said. “Let’s listen to the professionals” in the government.
Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin said after the meeting that the key areas of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans come down to “the miles of wall” GOP lawmakers will likely push for, as well as the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and the number of detention beds.
Increasingly, the word “barrier” means “fencing” to the key people involved, Durbin said. “I think we are in the world of fencing at this point.”
“We’re saying, tell us how you’re going to put it, tell us how you’re going to pay for it, justify the location,” Durbin said.
The conference committee must decide whether to seek a narrow deal -- reconciling Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funds with Democratic proposals for more border agents and technology -- or go for a larger agreement including a debt-limit increase, budget caps for next year and changes in immigration law.
Lawmakers are also debating whether to prevent future shutdowns by automatically extending government funds whenever a spending agreement cannot be found.
Trump has been pessimistic, saying a deal is unlikely and that he may declare a national emergency to make an end-run around Congress to build the wall he promised supporters in the 2016 campaign. In his interview with the Daily Caller, he said his administration had “a tremendous amount of money” it had identified for possible wall construction.
“In addition to that, we can declare a national emergency if this doesn’t work out,” Trump said.
Democrats hope the president will accept fencing and other border security provisions after seeing his popularity dip during the shutdown.
Separately, skirmishing on the House floor over a Democratic proposal to give federal workers a pay raise illustrated the continuing dispute over the shutdown that ended over the weekend.
Democrats led by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the proposed 2.6 percent raise -- later passed on a 259-161 vote -- is necessary and amounts to a show of appreciation for the work force. Hoyer called the shutdown “stupid.”
That prompted a retort from Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio -- co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee.
“No one wants a shutdown, but I’ll tell you what is stupid,” Jordan responded. “What’s stupid is a southern border that’s not secure.”
--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis, Anna Edgerton, Billy House and Justin Sink.
To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net;Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, John Harney
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