The congressional committee that President Trump hopes can agree to new spending on a southern border wall instead appears poised to abandon the idea altogether and settle for a deal that doesn’t include any wall funding.
Democratic members of the 17-member conference committee are among the strongest opponents of funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. And few of the GOP negotiators are as determined as Trump about making sure the wall is funded.
Republicans have another hurdle: They’re much more interested in avoiding another shutdown that hurts them politically. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the top Senate Republican on the conference committee, made it clear that dodging a shutdown is a key priority for him in the talks.
“My goal was always, and will be, to fund the government, fund it on time, and to avoid breakdowns,” Shelby said recently, adding that he supports preventing spending gridlock with “anything that we can do, that’s rational, legal, and reasonable.”
Another Senate Republican, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, last week signaled her support for a bipartisan deal Senate appropriators agreed to last summer that would have provided just $1.6 billion for 65 miles of pedestrian fencing in the Rio Grande Valley. That’s far short of the $5.7 billion Trump is looking for to build a steel wall.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., is also on the conference committee and said generally that he backs providing wall funding. But on “Fox News Sunday,” he also signaled support for the Senate’s $1.6 billion measure.
“We need to work hard to see that we find how we can solve this in a way that the president gets what he needs but the American people fundamentally get the government that they deserve,” Blunt said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Republican Sen. John Hoeven, of North Dakota, has signaled he’s a supporter of Trump’s goal in the talks.
“Democrats have indicated that they are willing to work with us, and now they need to follow through so we can enact a plan that includes funding for people, technology, and a barrier in order to ensure proper border security,” Hoeven said last week.
House Republicans appear to be much more likely than their Senate counterparts to fight for Trump’s wall. But it remains to be seen whether they’ll be able to hold the line against Democrats and the less-committed Republicans and to overcome their minority status in the House.
Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., for example, sponsored a bill last year to provide $23.4 billion for a border wall, which, when added to past allocated funding, would fulfill Trump’s $25 billion overall request.
Rep. Steve Palazzo, R-Miss., who is also on the conference committee, is another staunch advocate for wall funding. Last year, Palazzo introduced a bill that would have allowed public funding of a wall through revenue bonds.
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, told the Dallas Morning News recently that she believes illegal immigration along the border “is a crisis” and said she would support the president declaring a national emergency in order to divert federal funding to the construction of a border wall.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., the fourth House Republican on the panel, is a co-sponsor of Graves’ wall funding measure but made no mention of the wall in a recent statement about his role on the negotiating panel.
The conference committee has until Feb. 15, when a temporary funding measure, which is now keeping a quarter of the federal government operating after a 35-day shutdown, runs out. It’s also loaded with Democrats who don’t support any piece of Trump’s wall.
Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard of California and Nita Lowey of New York will lead the House Democrats when they sit down with Senate lawmakers to discuss an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
Roybal-Allard has consistently and vocally opposed federal funding for a wall. As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, Royal-Allard has argued the money Trump wants to spend erecting a wall or steel fence is needed for other homeland security priorities such as terrorism prevention and fighting the drug war.
“Critical national security needs cannot be met if we waste $5 billion on an unnecessary and ineffective border wall,” she said.
Lowey, who leads the Appropriations Committee, has called the wall “a boondoggle” and said the money is needed for other priorities.
“I oppose investing any money in a Trump wall,” Royal-Allard said recently. “Instead, let’s focus on fixing our broken immigration system and ensuring every single immigrant is treated humanely.”
On the Senate side, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, of Illinois, and Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, who lead the list of Democrats, have been unwavering in their opposition to spending money on a wall. Leahy, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, repeats Trump’s campaign promise that “Mexicans are going to pay for it” when asked about federal funding for a wall.
Durbin called Trump’s wall proposal “wasteful and ineffective.”
