WASHINGTON (AP) Budget negotiators will meet today to revive talks over border security issues that are central to legislation to prevent key parts of the government from shutting down on Saturday, but an air of pessimism remains after talks broke down over the weekend.
They collapsed over Democratic demands to limit the number of migrants authorities can detain, and the two sides remained separated over how much to spend on President Donald Trumps promised border wall. A Friday midnight deadline is looming to prevent a second partial government shutdown.
Key negotiators plan to meet today, Democratic and GOP aides say, but for now the mood is not hopeful.
Rising to the fore on Sunday was a related dispute over curbing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the federal agency that Republicans see as an emblem of tough immigration policies and Democrats accuse of often going too far.
Trump blamed Democrats in the migrant detention dispute, tweeting, The Democrats do not want us to detain, or send back, criminal aliens! This is a brand new demand. Crazy!
The fight over ICE detentions goes to the core of each partys view on immigration. Republicans favor rigid enforcement of immigration laws and have little interest in easing them if Democrats refuse to fund the Mexican border wall. Democrats despise the proposed wall and, in return for border security funds, want to curb what they see as unnecessarily harsh enforcement by ICE.
People involved in the talks say Democrats have proposed limiting the number of immigrants here illegally who are caught inside the U.S. not at the border that the agency can detain. Republicans say they dont want that cap to apply to immigrants caught committing crimes, but Democrats do.
Democrats say they proposed their cap to force ICE to concentrate its internal enforcement efforts on dangerous immigrants, not those who lack legal authority to be in the country but are productive and otherwise pose no threat. Democrats have proposed reducing the current number of beds ICE uses to detain immigrants here illegally from 40,520 to 35,520.
But within that limit, theyve also proposed limiting to 16,500 the number for immigrants here illegally caught within the U.S., including criminals. Republicans want no caps on the number of immigrants whove committed crimes who can be held by ICE.
Trump used the dispute to cast Democrats as soft on criminals.
I dont think the Dems on the Border Committee are being allowed by their leaders to make a deal. They are offering very little money for the desperately needed Border Wall & now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention! Trump tweeted Sunday.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in appearances on NBCs Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday, said you absolutely cannot eliminate the possibility of another shutdown if a deal is not reached over the wall and other border matters. The White House had asked for $5.7 billion, a figure rejected by the Democratic-controlled House, and the mood among bargainers has soured, according to people familiar with the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly about private talks.
You cannot take a shutdown off the table, and you cannot take $5.7 (billion) off the table, Mulvaney told NBC, but if you end up someplace in the middle, yeah, then what you probably see is the president say, Yeah, OK, and Ill go find the money someplace else.
A congressional deal seemed to stall even after Mulvaney convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at Camp David, the presidential retreat in northern Maryland. While the two sides appeared close to clinching a deal late last week, significant gaps remain and momentum appears to have slowed. Though congressional Democratic aides asserted that the dispute had caused the talks to break off, it was initially unclear how damaging the rift was. Both sides are eager to resolve the long-running battle and avert a fresh closure of dozens of federal agencies that would begin next weekend if Congress doesnt act by Friday.
I think talks are stalled right now, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said on Fox News Sunday. Im not confident were going to get there.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who appeared on the same program, agreed: We are not to the point where we can announce a deal.
