Congress reaches funding 'agreement in principle'
WASHINGTON — Negotiators say they have worked out an agreement on funding Homeland Security and the rest of the federal government through the end of the fiscal year.
The top four congressional appropriators said Monday they reached an “agreement in principle” on Homeland Security funding that resolves contentious issues like funding for a border barrier and the number of detention beds reserved for undocumented immigrants apprehended in the country.
“We’ve had a good evening. We reached an agreement in principle between us on the Homeland Security and the other six bills. Our staffs are going to be working feverishly to put all the particulars together,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby told reporters late Monday. “That’s all we can tell you now. We’re not getting into numbers and everything.”
The Alabama Republican was speaking after the third in a series of Monday afternoon and evening meetings with the other leading Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committees.
Shelby said the agreement encompasses all seven appropriations bills that have yet to be signed into law but not disaster relief funding.
“We didn’t do that. We’ll do that separately,” he said.
Rep. Nita M. Lowey of New York, the Democratic House Appropriations chairwoman, said the legislative text of the agreement will be done as soon as they can get it, hopefully by Wednesday. The deadline for action to avoid another shutdown is the end of Friday.
“Some people may think it’s a great deal. Some may feel differently. But we did it together,” she said.
Lowey said she has talked to Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the agreement, and she believes the California Democrat will support it.
Shelby and Lowey led the discussions with their respective minority counterparts Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.
The announcement came ahead of President Donald Trump’s scheduled Monday night appearance at a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas.
Asked about whether Trump would ultimately support the agreement among the appropriators, Shelby said, “We think so. We hope so.”
Three people familiar with Congress’ tentative border security deal said the accord would provide $1.375 billion to build 55 miles of new border barriers. That’s well below the $5.7 billion President Donald Trump demanded to build over 200 miles of wall along the Mexican boundary. The money will be for vertical steel slats called bollards, not a solid wall.
Democrats dropped their proposal to limit the number of detained immigrants caught inside the U.S. to a daily average of 16,500. Republicans opposed that demand. There is currently no such limit.
Bargainers agreed to fund 40,520 beds to detain immigrants entering or in the U.S. illegally. That’s the same number funded last year, though the actual figure held is around 49,000.
The sources described details of the still-secret agreement only on condition of anonymity.
