Senators reach deal to reopen government

Washington, January 22 

US senators struck a deal on Monday to lift a three-day government shutdown and try to end a fight between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Republicans over immigration and border security.

Legislation to renew federal funding to the government cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate and was expected soon to pass votes in the Senate and House of Representatives, allowing government to re-open through February 8.

Tens of thousands of federal workers had begun closing down operations for lack of funding on Monday, the first weekday since the shutdown, but essential services such as security and defense operations had continued.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he had come to an arrangement with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to keep the government open for the next few weeks after the Republican promised to let a bill on immigration reach the Senate floor.

The US government cannot fully operate without funding bills that are voted in Congress regularly. Washington has been hampered by frequent threats of a shutdown in recent years as the two parties fight over spending, immigration and other issues. The last US government shutdown was in 2013.

This shutdown, which began on the Friday’s first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration as President, undercut his self-crafted image as a dealmaker who would repair the broken culture in Washington.

It had forced Trump to cancel a planned weekend trip to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and created uncertainty around his scheduled trip this week to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In negotiations over the shutdown, Democrats had insisted that legislation to keep the government running include protections for young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers”.

Republicans in turn said they would not negotiate on immigration until Democrats gave them the votes needed to reopen the government.

Trump was expected to sign the legislation, which would give Congress more time to try to reach agreement on a long-term spending bill that would resolve issues including immigration, border security and spending caps.

McConnell promised to allow a fair and open immigration debate “to consider a proposal that can actually be signed into law, a bipartisan, bicameral group is already negotiating and I look forward to completion of its work.”

Such a debate would occur if a deal on an immigration bill is not reached before Febraury 8, McConnell said Democrats want Congress to address the issue of the “dreamers”, more than 700,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp welcomed the deal.

“You now have a commitment for a path forward for the so-called ‘dreamers’; That’s critical. We’re going to get a vote. We’re going to regular order,” she said.

House of Representatives Republicans have been told by their leaders to plan on voting on re-opening the federal government immediately. — Reuters

‘Dreamers’ drama

• The US government has not been shut down since 2013, when about 800,000 federal workers were put on furlough. That impasse prevented passage of a needed funding bill centered on former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law
• The problem this time focused on immigration policy, principally President Donald Trump’s order last year ending an Obama programme called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which gave legal protections to “dreamer” immigrants
• Trump said he would end DACA on March 5 and asked Congress to come up with a legislative fix before then to prevent ‘dreamers’ from being deported. Democrats have withheld support for a temporary funding bill to keep the government open over DACA issue