On Wednesday, President Donald Trump sided with conservatives in the Republican Party about immigration, slamming a proposed bipartisan deal on immigration reform as ‘horrible’ for border security and ‘very weak’ on reforms to the legal immigration system of the US.
In an interview with Reuters, the President said that the Senate proposal, which aimed to address the demands by the Democrats to offer protection to undocumented immigrants who came to the US as minors, known as ‘Dreamers’, fell short of what the majority of Republicans want to see happen. Trump even went so far as calling the proposed deal the opposite of everything that he campaigned for during his bid to become President.
Many in the Democratic Party have vowed to refuse to vote for any bill without an immigration deal, and at least some Democrat votes will be required to ensure that the funding extension can be passed in the Senate. Although Trump believes it is still within the bounds of possibility for a deal to be reached, he acknowledges that time is running out to prevent a government shutdown, which could happen as soon as the end of the week.
Trump says that if a shutdown does take place, the blame will fall squarely on the Democrats. But he did not dismiss the possibility of a short-term spending measure to prevent an immediate shutdown from taking place. Some Republicans, though, are against passing such a bill.