President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Republicans should force a government shutdown unless Democrats agree to his immigration demands.
Trump had been talking about MS-13 gang members and ‘loopholes’ in the law that keep the illegal immigrant gang members in the country during a roundtable with immigration officials and lawmakers at the White House.
‘If we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown. We’ll do a shutdown and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,’ Trump said.
Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who was present, rebutted the president moments later, telling him, ‘We don’t need a government shutdown on this.’
The president fired back: ‘We are not getting support from the Democrats,’ he told the Virginia congresswoman.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Republicans should force a government shutdown unless Democrats agree to close ‘loopholes’ that allow immigrant gang members to enter the country
Trump countered Comstock, who has a political target on her back representing a district with a substantial number of Democrats and federal workers, immediately after she also praised the Washington Post – an occasional Trump punching bag.
‘The Washington Post has done some actual great reporting, these are all stories about the gang killers,’ she said. ‘People here live in fear just seven miles from the White House. They’ve been covering this,’ Comstock said.
Trump had said earlier in the roundtable that MS-13 ‘recruits through our broken immigration system, violating our borders, and it just comes right through, whenever they want to come through they come through.’
‘It’s much tougher now, since we’ve been there, but we need much better border mechanisms and much better border security,’ he said. ‘We need the wall. We’re going to get the wall. If we don’t have the wall, we’re never going to solve this problem. … Without the wall, it’s not going to work,’ he said.
Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen speaks as US President Donald Trump holds a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials and local community leaders on the threat of MS-13 on February 6, 2018 at the White House in Washington,DC
Trump made the comments about the shutdown at an immigration meeting that was broadcast on cable networks until they cut away
He added, ‘I think the Democrats don’t want to make a deal, but we’ll find out.’
His blast about a shutdown came on a day when Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in delicate talks over agreeing to raise spending caps on non-defense areas of government spending.
Harping on the topic at the lengthy meeting that streamed live on the White House’s website for all to see, Trump called for a government shutdown if a deal is not brokered that gives him what he wants.
Trump appeared to be referring to a Thursday evening deadline to pass new federal spending authorization. Congressional Republicans are looking to extend the the authority until March 23 through a stop-gap measure.
The president threw a wrench in the strategy at Tuesday’s roundtable when he said,’If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety, and unrelated – but still related – they don’t want to take care of our military, then shut it down. We’ll go with another shutdown.’
Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) challenged Trump’s comments about a shutdown
Alleged members of the MS13 and 18 gang board a police vehicle after being presented to the press in San Salvador on February 26, 2016
Handcuffed inmates, members of MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, wait upon arrival at the maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca, 65 kilometres east of San Salvador, on August 9, 2017
Members of the “Mara 18” gang kept under custody in the Supreme Court building, after a member of the rival “Mara Salvatrucha” gang was killed in Guatemala City on September 30, 2015
Member of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) Rumalda Fernandez, an inmate at the Women’s National Prison, prepares baby bottles for her sons, during Mother’s Day, in Tamara, Francisco Morazan, 25 km north of Tegucigalpa, on May 8, 2011
His saber rattling prompted the response from Comstock, whose district includes parts of suburban Fairfax County and stretches all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
When it came to her turn to speak, Comstock did not allow Trump to go unanswered.
‘I would implore, since I live just over the [Potomac] River … We don’t need a government shutdown on this. I think both sides have learned that a government shutdown was bad,’ she said.
Back in May, Comstock voted against a House Republican leadership backed health care bill.
Hillary Clinton won her district with 51 per cent of the vote.
Cable networks carried the top of the meeting, hoping for a replay of the extraordinary meeting Trump held on immigration that included Democratic as well as Republican leaders.
They soon cutaway as the meeting trailed into talking points with people who mostly agreed with each other. ‘It takes a whole of government approach and we’re able to do that under your leadership, which we appreciate,’ Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen saluted Trump at one point.
Trump got asked by a reporter about his explosive shutdown comments when the meeting was over.
‘I would shut it down over this issue,’ Trump said, not backing down.
‘I can’t speak for everybody at the table but I will tell you, I would shut it down over this issue. If we don’t straighten out our border, we don’t have a country. Without borders we don’t have a country. So would I would shut it down over this issue? Yes. I can’t speak for our great representatives here but I have a feeling they may agree with me,’ he added.
Federal funding has already lapsed once this year – on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. Trump called that lapse the ‘Schumer Shutdown’ while Republicans branded it the ‘Trump Shutdown.’
A second catastrophe would inherently be blamed on Trump as a result of today’s comments.
Earlier on Tuesday Trump had touted a poll that showed broad support for his immigration reform proposals, and blasted Democrats who oppose it.
‘Polling shows nearly 7 in 10 Americans support an immigration reform package that includes DACA, fully secures the border, ends chain migration & cancels the visa lottery,’ the president tweeted, promoting a news article about new polling numbers.
‘If D[emocrat]s oppose this deal, they aren’t serious about DACA–they just want open borders.’
The new Harvard-Harris Poll found that 65 per cent of registered voters would back ‘a congressional deal that gives undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents work permits and a path to citizenship in exchange for increasing merit preference over preference for relatives, eliminating the diversity visa lottery, and funding barrier security on the U.S.-Mexico border.’
If Democrats oppose the White House’s proposal, Trump tweeted, ‘they aren’t serious about DACA – they just want open borders’
That’s a near-verbatim description of the White House’s preferred approach.
The poll also found 58 per cent would disagree with Democrats who vote to shut down the government over restoring DACA, the program that shields those young illegal immigrants from deportation.
Fifty-four per cent support building Trump’s long-promised wall when it’s described in practical terms as ‘a combination of physical and electronic barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border.’
Sixty-eight per cent oppose ‘the lottery that randomly picks 50,000 people to enter the U.S. each year for greater diversity.’
Trump also tweeted Tuesday that American needs ‘a 21st century MERIT-BASED immigration system.’
‘Chain migration and the visa lottery are outdated programs that hurt our economic and national security.’
Chain migration describes the current system that allows legal immigrants in the U.S. to sponsor what Trump’s State of the Union speech last week called ‘virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.’
The White House instead wants to limit that to immediate family members.
Democrats have argued that what they call ‘family reunification’ laws should not be pared back. Some of them booed and hissed the president when he addressed the subject.
In reality, the U.S. imimgration system doesn’t allow an individual green-card holder to directly sponsor distant relatives once he or she becomes a citizen.
But sponsoring a parent can lead to the sponsorship of the original immigrant’s aunts and uncles, and then cousins. Sponsoring a sibling can lead to in-laws entering the country through other sponsorships.
Trump also re-upped his contention that a merit-based immigration system is preferable to one that grants green cards on the basis of family relationships – another view that a new poll backs him up on
The resulting ‘chain’ is in fact practically unlimited but can take decades to unfold.
Harvard-Harris pollsters asked registered voters whether ‘immigration priority for those coming to the U.S. should be based on a person’s ability to contribute to America as measured by their education and skills’ or whether decisions should be made ‘based on a person having relatives in the U.S.’
A robust 79 per cent chose the merit-based approach. Just 21 per cent said family relationships should take priority.