Government shutdown 2019: what you need to know about the border wall spending fight

President Donald Trump anticipated that his national emergency declaration at the border would face legal challenges. It already has. So he’s gearing up for battle — including in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that he’s lamented before.

On Tuesday, Trump reacted to a lawsuit filed Monday by 16 states, including California, New York, and Michigan, over his decision to declare a national emergency in an attempt to get funding for his border wall.

Senate Republicans aren’t sure about paying federal contractors who missed out on wages during the longest government shutdown in US history.

While roughly 800,000 federal employees ultimately received back pay after going more than a month without their salaries, as many as 580,000 government contractors — including janitors, cafeteria workers, developers, and consultants — may not have received any compensation.

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency at the southern border in an attempt to get his border wall built. It’s a move he’s been teasing for weeks.

“We’re going to be signing today and registering national emergency, and it’s a great thing to do,” Trump said in a speech at the White House Rose Garden on Friday announcing the decision. He claimed the measure was needed to stop an “invasion” of people, gangs, and drugs. (There is no such invasion.)

After battling for weeks over funding for a border wall, overseeing the longest government shutdown in US history, and finally signing on to a deal to fund the government, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency over a contrived crisis at the US-Mexico border.

On Friday, Trump invoked his power to declare a national emergency in a unilateral effort to make progress on the border wall Congress has thus far denied him. He initially demanded $5 billion for the construction of about 200 miles of barrier at the border, and Democrats in Congress have repeatedly refused to go anywhere near that figure. He got about $1.3 billion for border fencing in the deal he finally agreed to, a far cry from the desired amount. So he’s going with a national emergency to get more.

It’s official: both the House and the Senate have passed a border security deal that’s now headed to the President’s desk. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had said that Trump will sign the deal and narrowly avert another government shutdown by doing so. Trump is also expected to declare a national emergency in order to obtain funding for his border wall.

Congressional lawmakers on Wednesday released the legislative text, which was put together by a special committee designated to figuring out a compromise on Homeland Security funding in the wake of a 35-day shutdown.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) began shouting when he was asked to yield in the middle of giving a speech about renewable energy on the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon.

“I hope the next time I get a chance to have the floor, I won’t be interrupted!” Grassley said.

Lawmakers are currently working furiously to hash out the details on a border security deal, and one thing that’s caught up in negotiations is a bill that would guarantee back pay for federal contractors affected by the recent government shutdown.

Unlike other government employees who received back pay for the time they were furloughed during the shutdown — which lasted a whopping 35 days — many federal contractors simply have a massive hole in their paychecks.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), the House conservative leader who in December advised President Donald Trump to reject any government funding bill without a down payment on his border wall, isn’t happy with a compromise agreement Congress has come up with on border security. But he’s stuck.

The government will run out of money again this Friday, and the last time conservatives overplayed their hand with government shutdown brinksmanship, the government underwent the longest shutdown in US history. It tanked Trump’s approval rating without getting them any closer to their desired hundreds of miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border.

Congressional negotiators have kind of, sort of reached a border security deal — and while President Donald Trump has said he isn’t particularly “happy” with it, he also emphasized that he didn’t think there would be another shutdown.

After several hours of meetings on Monday, top appropriators in the House and Senate emerged from a closed-door session to announce that they had reached a funding agreement “in principle.”

The heart of the tentative deal reached Monday night to fund the Department of Homeland Security and avert another government shutdown before Friday’s deadline isn’t actually the $1.375 billion in funds for a physical barrier (President Trump’s “wall”) along 55 miles of the US-Mexico border.

It’s funding for the detention of immigrants — both those apprehended at the border and those arrested within the United States — by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Congress is facing yet another familiar deadline this week: If lawmakers don’t pass a package of seven spending bills by midnight this Friday, the government could go into its second partial shutdown of the year.

Both Democrats and Republicans seem determined to avoid one, but as Trump’s acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told Meet the Press this weekend, “You absolutely cannot” rule out another shutdown, because Trump still wants his border wall and Democrats still do not want to give it to him.

President Donald Trump is allowing the longest government shutdown in US history to drag on because he wants Congress to give him $5 billion for 215 miles of border wall.

But make no mistake, the existing physical wall at the US-Mexico border is about to be extended even without any new funding. That’s because, in the 2018 spending bill, Congress allocated $1.3 billion to build a total of about 33 miles of new border wall and fortify a few existing segments in California and Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security says construction will begin on the first new segment — six miles of reinforced concrete levee wall topped with steel bollards in Hidalgo County — in February.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins is the first — and so far only — Republican senator to sign on to a bill guaranteeing back pay for federal contractors in the wake of the 35-day government shutdown. The bill would ensure that contractors, who typically haven’t received back pay in the past, also get paychecks for the time they missed as a result of the stalemate.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), who is leading the legislation, has now gained support for the bill from more than 35 Democrats, but no Republicans had officially backed up the bill until this point, according to a spokesperson for Smith.

The government shutdown ended late last week. It went on for 35 days and meant that nearly 800,000 government employees and contractors missed two paychecks. Furloughed workers took out high-interest loans and second mortgages on their homes, and visited food pantries to get meals on the table. Though workers are still digging out, the worst of the nightmare is over for now due to a temporary spending bill; still, the government could shut down again in a few weeks.

For the rest of the country looking on, the question of what we would do if we missed two paychecks in a row was on many people’s minds. And for many, it was no mystery: They wouldn’t be able to afford it.

With another government shutdown deadline looming just weeks away, more and more members of Congress are considering bills that could make sure shutdowns never happen again.

Three such bills have been floated in the Senate, along with two others in the House, and while each of them would address the issue slightly differently, several would “automatically” maintain funding for the government if lawmakers are unable to reach an agreement on spending bills. By doing so, such measures would ensure that the government stays open — and federal workers keep getting paid — even if Congress doesn’t secure a spending deal by the necessary deadline.

The partial government shutdown may have disrupted air travel and triggered financial hardship, but it didn’t stop the White House from continuing to dismantle regulations meant to protect US workers.

On Friday, the Trump administration gutted a 2016 rule that required most employers to electronically submit detailed reports of all workplace injuries to the Department of Labor each year — reports they’ve long been required to keep, but never required to submit.

The government shutdown over funding for a border wall is over (at least for now). But President Trump has a new problem: His biggest allies in the media are lashing out at him directly.

After Trump announced he would reopen the government for three weeks to negotiate a long-term solution (with no promise of border wall funds), a number of high-profile media personalities on the right were livid, including some of the president’s most prominent supporters.

The partial government shutdown may be over, but its economic ramifications are not — in fact, some of the costs of the five-week shutdown will never be recovered.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday estimated that the shutdown cost the economy $11 billion. Most of that will be recovered, but not all of it: The CBO said that some $3 billion in economic activity has been permanently lost.

How do you bounce back from the longest government shutdown in US history — especially when that reprieve may only be temporary?

After 35 days of sticking to his demands for $5 billion to fund his “big, beautiful” border wall, President Donald Trump caved on Friday and agreed to sign a continuing resolution that will reopen the federal government through February 15.

On its 35th day, the partial government shutdown finally reached its breaking point.

For weeks, hundreds of thousands of government workers missed paychecks, Smithsonian museums closed their doors, and certain government services slowed to a crawl. Yet it wasn’t until Thursday that Congress or the White House seemed to have any sense of urgency about the partial shutdown, which began on December 22.

Flashback 40 days and Nancy Pelosi’s return to the speakership was a hard-won prize marred by Democratic grumbling.

After the midterm elections, 15 House Democrats signed a letter urging their colleagues not to support Pelosi for speaker: “We promised to change the status quo and we intend to deliver on that promise.” To recapture the gavel, Pelosi had to promise to be a “transitional” speaker, and many Democrats felt she only regained the role because there were no compelling alternatives.

It looks like President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address won’t happen next Tuesday, even though the government shutdown should be over by then.

Trump was initially scheduled to give his address on January 29, before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week rescinded his invitation to speak at the US House of Representatives. At a Friday press conference, she suggested the president still won’t get his original speaking slot when a reporter asked her if the address would “go on as planned.”

The longest government shutdown in US history is almost over, and the federal government will be fully operational again — at least for the next three weeks.

The relief is temporary. The deal cut by President Trump and congressional leaders to end the shutdown funds several government agencies only through February 15, with the understanding that Democrats and Republicans will keep searching for a compromise that would give Trump the win he wants on border security while also providing protections for vulnerable migrants, as Democrats demand.

The government is opening again. After a more than month-long standoff over funding for a southern border wall, in the end, President Trump agreed to fund the government — for now — without any additional wall funding.

Congress is expected to pass a short-term spending bill to open the government for three weeks, without any additional funding for a wall and with the presumption that Democrats and Republicans will use the time to come to an agreement on border security. This has been Democrats’ position on the shutdown all along.

The great government shutdown of 2019 is over. (For at least three weeks.)

After 35 days of pointless posturing and reckless damage to the fabric of the American state, President Donald Trump has agreed to sign a continuing resolution that will fund the government through February 15 without appropriating any money for the construction of a border wall.