From 'Drain The Swamp' to Shutting it Down Completely
PHOTO: Comedic photo of Pres. Trump at a 2016 rally.
UPDATE: The government shutdown is now coming to a close, with another short-term resolution that expands government funding for two and a half weeks until February 8th, 2018. The two weeks will be used for direct negotiations revolving around immigration reforms and demands.
President Trump, as of right now, is failing at being his self-proclaimed 'negotiator-in-chief' or at calming down the American population. He once promised to 'drain the swamp' that politicians had formed in Washington, but now, it's literally shutdown.
Though not completely shut down - the US federal government is currently useless until they reopen by passing a funding bill of which is still being contested and heavily debated in the United States senate. Here's what Dems want, and Republicans want.
Democrats have made it extremely clear in recent weeks that they would not agree to any bill, whether it's another Continuing Resolution (CR) or a long-term funding bill, if it doesn't include protection for DACA recipients - protection for illegal immigrants of which migrated to the US when they were children and unable to decide themselves.
Republicans, or specifically President Trump, has also made it quite clear what he wants. The GOP and Trump have stated, at first, that there wouldn't be any path for a fix in the case of DACA without building Trump's wall and some more border funding. Democrats, at first, did not agree to the terms Trump was proposing.
According to recently publicized reports, Senate minority leader Schumer of the Democratic Party had put Trump's wall funding as well as extra border security on the table if Trump would agree to fix DACA immediately. They agreed.
Don't believe it? Ask yourself this - how many times have you seen or heard Trump say that there wouldn't be DACA without a wall? Exactly. And even if you doubt Schumer ever really put it on the table, he is now - but Republicans still aren't budging.
The GOP's argument is that DACA is fully unrelated to the government funding bills and should not be attached. They also say that there's until March for a bill to be passed and saying that the Republicans and Dems would find a bipartisan path for the critical bill after funding the government. They say that DACA is not an imminent concern (something they've been saying for months) and is not worth a shutdown.
In some terms, they're right. But nobody claimed it was an imminent concern. Senate Democrats want to pass DACA immediately as the effects are already commencing and already starting to effect it's recipients. But that isn't all.
They, logically, feel as though the GOP will never agree to the Dems' terms on DACA unless something is passed immediately. A government shutdown was issued by the Senate Dems in attempt to show Republicans how serious they find the issue to be; whether or not the feeling is mutual.
Here's where questions come in.
If Republicans have already said that they wish to address DACA (for months), and President Trump reached a deal - that he later walked away from - with Schumer over DACA back in fall of 2017, why do they keep postponing it?
That question may be the exact one that Dems asked themselves, and are now challenging how strongly Republicans feel about saving DACA recipients. Clearly, we can tell, they don't care that much as for they aren't budging and aren't willing to quite simply attach a DACA negotiation to the government funding bill.
Republicans continue to say Democrats are punishing American citizens and workers to help illegal immigrants, something severely degraded by most Democrats who see the DACA issue as for more than just 'illegal immigrants'.
Either way, Democrats have been quite vocally supporting an extremely short-termed continuing resolution of only 3-4 days, saying that during those days a deal for DACA must be negotiated in order for Democrat support on the following continuing resolution or maybe a long-term spending bill.
There could be another reason Dems are fighting so hard for DACA; the 2018 midterms. The Dems know that a good strategy for them to get a lot of votes from their supporters would be to pass a huge piece of legislation without even controlling absolutely any part of the US government.