NATION
Saturday, January 5, 2019
East Oregonian
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Trump: Shutdown could last for ‘months or even years’
Weekend talks set
for aides, officials
By CATHERINE LUCEY,
LISA MASCARO AND
JILL COLVIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
President Donald Trump
declared Friday he could
keep parts of the govern-
ment shut down for “months
or even years” as he and
Democratic leaders failed in
a second closed-door meet-
ing to resolve his demand for
billions of dollars for a bor-
der wall with Mexico. They
did agree to a new round of
weekend talks between staff
members and White House
officials.
Trump met in the White
House Situation Room with
congressional leaders from
both parties as the shut-
down hit the two-week mark
amid an impasse over his
wall demands. Democrats
emerged from the roughly
two-hour meeting, which
both sides said was conten-
tious at times, to report little
if any progress.
The
standoff
also
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference
in the Rose Garden of the White House after meeting with
lawmakers about border security, Friday in Washington.
prompted economic jitters
and anxiety among some in
Trump’s own party. But he
appeared in the Rose Gar-
den to frame the upcoming
weekend talks as progress,
while making clear he would
not reopen the government.
“We won’t be opening
until it’s solved,” Trump
said. “I don’t call it a shut-
down. I call it doing what
you have to do for the ben-
efit and the safety of our
country.”
Trump said the hun-
dreds of thousands of fed-
eral workers who are fur-
loughed or working without
pay would want him to
“keep going” and fight for
border security. Asked how
people would manage with-
out a financial safety net, he
declared: “The safety net is
going to be having a strong
border because we’re going
to be safe.”
Democrats,
on
the
other hand, spoke of fami-
lies unable to pay bills and
called on Trump to reopen
the government while nego-
tiations continue. Senate
Democratic Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer said, “It’s
very hard to see how prog-
ress will be made unless they
open up the government.”
Friday’s White House
meeting
with
Trump
included eight congressio-
nal leaders — the top two
Democrats and Republi-
cans of both chambers. Peo-
ple familiar with the session
but not authorized to speak
publicly described Trump as
holding forth at length on a
range of subjects but said he
made clear he was firm in
his demand for $5.6 billion
in wall funding and in reject-
ing the Democrats’ request
to reopen the government.
Trump confirmed that he
privately told Democrats the
shutdown could drag on for
months or years, though he
said he hoped it wouldn’t
last that long. Said Trump:
“I hope it doesn’t go on even
beyond a few more days.”
House Democrats mus-
cled through legislation
Thursday night to fund
the government but not
Trump’s proposed wall.
However, Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell
has said those measures are
non-starters on his side of
the Capitol without the pres-
ident’s support.
A variety of strategies
are being floated inside and
outside the White House,
among them trading wall
funding for a deal on immi-
grants brought to the coun-
try as young people and now
here illegally, or using a
national emergency declara-
tion to build the wall. While
Trump made clear during his
press conference that talk on
DACA (the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals pro-
gram) would have to wait
and that he was trying to
negotiate with Congress on
the wall, the conversations
underscored rising Republi-
can anxiety about just how
to exit the shutdown.
Seeking to ease con-
cerns, the White House
sought to frame the week-
end talks as a step forward,
as did McConnell, who
described plans for a “work-
ing group,” though people
familiar with the meeting
said that phrase never actu-
ally came up. Trump desig-
nated Vice President Mike
Pence, Homeland Security
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen
and adviser Jared Kushner
to work with a congres-
sional delegation over the
weekend.
Some GOP senators
up for re-election in 2020
voiced discomfort with the
shutdown in recent days,
including Cory Gardner of
Colorado and Susan Collins
of Maine, putting additional
pressure on Republicans.
But with staff level talks
there is always an open
question of whether Trump’s
aides are fully empowered
to negotiate for the presi-
dent. Earlier this week, he
rejected his own adminis-
tration’s offer to accept $2.5
billion for the wall. That
proposal was made when
Pence and other top officials
met at the start of the shut-
down with Schumer.
During his free-wheel-
ing session with reporters,
Trump also wrongly claimed
that he’d never called for the
wall to be concrete. Trump
did so repeatedly during his
campaign, describing a wall
of pre-cast concrete sections
that would be higher than
the walls of many of his
rally venues. He repeated
that promise just days ago.
Debate about the wall obscures other struggles at the border
By COLLEEN LONG
AND ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — In Wash-
ington, it’s all about the wall.
At the border, it’s only part
of the story.
Border authorities are
struggling with outdated
facilities ill-equipped to han-
dle the growing increase in
family migrants, resulting in
immigrants being released
onto the streets every day.
The immigration court sys-
tem is so clogged that some
wait years for their cases to
be resolved, and lacks fund-
ing to pay for basic things
like in-person translators.
An increase in sick chil-
dren arriving at the border is
putting a strain on medical
resources.
But the Washington debate
has focused almost exclu-
sively on the $5 billion in
wall spending that President
Donald Trump wants. Other
proposals being discussed
keep the rest of the Homeland
Security department funding
at existing levels.
“The wall is a tool. Unfor-
tunately even if it’s imple-
mented across the border it
isn’t a solution to all the prob-
lems,” said Victor M. Man-
jarrez, a former Border Patrol
chief with more than 20 years
of experience, now a profes-
sor at the University of Tex-
as-El Paso.
Trump has suggested
migrants won’t bother to
come if he gets his way, mak-
ing other immigration issues
less problematic. Walls and
fencing currently blanket
about one-third of the bor-
der — mostly built under
AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza
A migrant from Honduras passes a child to her father after he
jumped the border fence to get into the U.S. side to San Diego,
Calif., from Tijuana, Mexico on Thursday.
President George W. Bush
— and the president wants to
extend and fortify them. But
contracting, designing and
building new wall systems
complete with updated tech-
nology could take years.
Impeachment talk flares after
Democrats take power in House
WASHINGTON (AP) —
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
had only been in office for
a few hours when a hand-
ful of Democrats defied her
persistent calls not to begin
the new Congress by talking
about impeachment.
Just after Pelosi was
sworn in Thursday, long-
time Democratic Reps. Brad
Sherman of California and
Al Green of Texas intro-
duced articles of impeach-
ment against President Don-
ald Trump. That evening,
newly elected Rep. Rashida
Tlaib of Michigan riled up
a supportive crowd by call-
ing the president a profanity
and predicting that he will
be removed from office.
Tension over impeach-
ment is likely to be a per-
sistent thorn for Pelosi, who
will have to balance between
a small, vocal group of the
most liberal members of
her caucus, who want to
see Trump removed imme-
diately, and the majority
of her members who want
to wait for special coun-
sel Robert Mueller’s Rus-
sia investigation to finish.
Pelosi purposely avoided
— and encouraged most fel-
low Democrats to avoid —
any talk of impeachment
during the election, believ-
ing there could be backlash
from voters.
While eager to paint
impeachment as the Dem-
ocrats’ only agenda, Trump
has also expressed some
worry both publicly and pri-
vately at the prospect. He has
told confidants that he finds
the impeachment talk some-
what unnerving, according
to an outside adviser who
spoke to him in recent days.
The president, who has
long fashioned himself as
the ultimate winner, told
the confidant that he wor-
ried that impeachment, even
The debate overlooks
major bottlenecks in the
immigration system as more
families and children trav-
eling alone turn themselves
in to authorities to seek
asylum, instead of trying
to elude capture as almost
everyone did just a few years
ago. In some cases, migrants
are climbing existing border
fence and seeking out agents
to surrender.
The backlog in immi-
gration courts has more
than doubled to 1.1 million
cases since shortly before
Trump took office, accord-
ing to Syracuse Universi-
ty’s Transactional Records
Access
Clearinghouse.
Families and children now
account for about six of 10
Border Patrol arrests, but
there are only about 3,300
family detention beds and
the number of unaccom-
panied children in govern-
ment care has soared under
Trump.
Border crossers are stuck
in short-term holding cells
for days and there has been
a spike in sick migrant chil-
dren, including two who
died in custody.
In addition, the wall will
do little to address the issue of
visa overstays — when immi-
grants come to the country
legally and remain here after
their papers expire. Author-
ities say there were nearly
740,000 overstays during a
recent 12-month period.
And border agents con-
tinue to struggle with grow-
ing numbers of children and
families. Officials say they
are stopping about 2,000
people a day, more than 60
percent children and fam-
ilies, higher than during
many periods under Presi-
dent Barack Obama. They
referred 451 cases to a med-
ical provider from Dec. 22
to Dec. 30, more than half
children.
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AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is shown on the House
floor before being sworn into the 116th Congress at the U.S.
Capitol in Washington.
if he retained office, would
be a stain on his legacy.
And while he thought the
impeachment would rally his
own base in the 2020 elec-
tion it could hurt his stand-
ing with foreign leaders as
he negotiates trade deals,
according to the adviser.
While many Democrats
might favor impeachment,
those calling for it now are
largely outliers. Most Dem-
ocratic lawmakers listened
to Pelosi and campaigned on
kitchen table issues such as
health care and jobs and pre-
fer to keep them at the fore-
front of the party’s focus.
Still, it will be hard for
Pelosi to quiet some on her
left flank who see their new
majority as a direct chal-
lenge to Trump.
“Impeachment is on the
table,” Sherman said. “You
can’t take it off the table.”
Tlaib, who represents a
liberal district in Detroit,
exclaimed at an event late
Thursday that Democrats
were going to “impeach the
mother------.” She didn’t
back down Friday, tweet-
ing that “I will always
speak truth to power.”
She added the hashtag,
“#unapologeticallyMe.”
Her spokesman, Denzel
McCampbell, said in a state-
ment that Tlaib, one of only
two Muslim women in Con-
gress, “was elected to shake
up Washington” and will not
stay silent.
Pelosi said Friday at an
MSNBC town hall said she
wouldn’t censor her col-
leagues, and that Tlaib’s lan-
guage was no worse than
things Trump has said.
Still, Pelosi said she
didn’t like the language and
wouldn’t use it. She said, as
she has many times before,
that the House shouldn’t
move to impeach Trump
without more facts and that
she believes impeachment is
divisive.
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