Spending Negotiations

As time is ticking toward January 19, the date in which the government could partially shut down, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate struggle to negotiate the terms of U.S. immigration policy. According to the New York Times article, Senators "have been meeting nearly everyday for the past two months to negotiate a deal that would protect the DACA recipients while beefing up border security" (Stolberg and Tackett, White House Immigration Demands Imperil Bipartisan Talks, nytimes.com), but those negotiations have just been made more difficult by the list of nonnegotiable terms the White House sent to Congress. The President's isolationist, America first agenda is evident by the White House request for in the span of ten years nearly $33 billion to be spent on border security, including $18 billion to be allocated for the wall alone. The Democrats have argued that the money spent on a wall could fund healthcare programs and that a wall is a symbol of what divide many Americans and make Dreamers feel disheartened by the country they call home. Hopefully, a humanitarian deal can be reached by the Senators that would not add to the divisiveness that exists within the country, which is often exacerbated on twitter.

Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/us/politics/trump-republicans-immigration-spending.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=26&pgtype=sectionfront