The two top Senate appropriators said they are aiming to complete a broad spending and border security deal Monday night after reviving stalled negotiations.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and the panel’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the group of four bipartisan negotiators from the House and Senate will convene at 8 p.m. for the third time today for “serious” negotiations.
“We both agree if we can, we should wrap this up tonight and not have it go into tomorrow,” Leahy said.
Shelby said negotiators are “hopefully making some progress” and added that he is encouraged.
“At the moment, I think the odds have improved, but they still have not crystalized,” he said of the so-far elusive agreement.
Negotiators appear to be acting with a sense of urgency to find a breakthrough in what has been a monthslong stalemate over border security.
A temporary government funding bill expires on Feb. 15, and a few days are needed for any spending legislation to churn through Congress and reach President Trump’s desk.
“Let me say very clearly, I don’t think Democrats or Republicans want a shutdown,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who is among the negotiators, said Monday as she left one of the meetings.
The two parties are at odds over how much money the deal should allocate for border barriers President Trump is seeking. Both parties appear ready to settle for $2 billion for border barriers in targeted areas, short of the $5.7 billion that Trump wants.
The new sticking point centers in ICE detention. Democrats want to cap ICE’s average daily population of detainees at 16,500 until the end of fiscal 2019.
Republicans are calling the cap a poison pill that both sides were supposed to agree to leave out of the talks.
