One of the reasons why Trump won the elections was his promise to tighten the US immigration and border controls system. So far, he was stopped several times by Democrats when it comes to border wall with Mexico and he is now again threatening to shut down the US government if he doesn’t get what he wants.
Here is what he wrote in a tweet: “I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!”
Trump decided to give the ultimatum to the government as the funding needs to be agreed by September 30 or they will be forced to shut down. On top of that, have in mind that mid-term elections are just around the corner in November. Comments made by POTUS are not in line with what we could hear from his party leaders from Seante and the White House as they insist that this needs to wait after mid-terms that will be quite hard.
This is not the first time we could hear Trump threatening to shutdown the government in attempts to push his priorities. It has been estimated by the Department of Homeland Security that the cost of the border wall would be about $21 billion, but Democrats suggest that this figure would be much higher at about $70 billion. To make things even worse for Trump, he suggested that Mexico will pay for the wall, and we simply don’t see it happen.
Other things that POTUS want’s to be changed regarding immigration policy is the ending of the visa lottery program that randonly gives 50,000 green cards. Also, people that have relatives in the US are priorities on the visa lists, which is another thing that he wants to stop. Immigration bill that Republicans brought a month ago didn’t go through Congress.
With only a thin majority that the Republicans have in the Senate it is needed for 10 Democrats to support the latest bill in which $5 billion would be given for the wall during the next year.
According to analysts, this move might be a well tought plan by Trump to mobile his voters before mid-term. On the other hand, Democrats believe that if shutdown happens it will only help them to get more seats.
Both Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security committee and Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee believe that this wouldn’t be a good move for their party. Stivers said: “I think we’re going to make sure we keep the government open, but we’re going to get better policies on immigration.”
Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Ben Ray Lujan stated: “Democrats wants to work together in a bipartisan way when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform.”
