U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated that he is likely to sign a bipartisan border security deal from Congress that will keep the federal government open past Friday. Mr. Trump, however, indicated he was not happy with the terms, which provide him with far less funding for shorter stretches of a “border wall” than he had initially demanded.
“Am I happy at first glance? The answer is no, I’m not, I’m not happy,” Mr. Trump said to reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
However, he indicated the deal would go through. “I don’t think you’re going to see a shutdown,” Mr Trump said about the possibility of another shutdown that will begin Friday if no deal is reached.
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Several media outlets reported on Wednesday morning that sources had confirmed that the President would sign the deal.
The deal provides $1.375 billion for 55 miles of new border fencing as opposed to the $.5.7 billion for the 234 miles of steel walls Mr. Trump had demanded. The funding is also less than the $1.6 billion a Senate Bill offered last year and substantially less than what the $25 billion offered for border security as part of a Bill that had some bipartisan support in the Senate in early 2018.
“It’s not going to do the trick, but I’m adding things to it, and when you add whatever I have to add, it’s all going to happen where we’re going to build a beautiful, big, strong wall,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday.
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Executive order
CNN reported that Mr. Trump could be considering an executive order as one of the options to allocate additional funding for the border. Mr. Trump has also threatened to declare a national emergency — something that is highly likely to be challenged in court — to divert funds from other sources for his wall.
The proposed deal will also keep parts of the government that will run out of funding on Friday open until September 30. The country has just emerged from a record 35-day partial government shutdown, which impacted some 8,00,000 federal workers.
Both parties are touting the deal as a victory. The Republicans did so because they have got funding for some length of a physical barrier at the border, and the Democrats because the funding is a fraction of what the President has been demanding.
Detention beds
The deal also maintains funding for detention beds at the border (i.e., the capacity to detain migrants) at at 40,520 beds. However, there is no cap on this as part of the new deal. This could potentially allow additional funding to get up to 52,000 beds, as Mr. Trump has wanted. The Democrats have also let go of a demand for a cap on the number of interior (i.e., not at the border) beds.
The Bill also allocates $1.7 billion for border security via the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats have said they are in favour of stronger border security.
While some conservative commentators have balked at the deal, Hill Republicans have been pushing the President to accept it. “I hope he’ll sign it,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “I think he got a pretty good deal.”