Congressional negotiators reached agreement to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, overcoming a late-stage hang-up over illegal immigration that had threatened to scuttle the talks.
But Fox News star Sean Hannity is not happy. He called the deal a “garbage compromise” — and called on President Donald Trump.
“By the way, on this new so-called compromise,” Hannity said last night, breaking into Fox News’ coverage of Trump’s rally in El Paso. “I’m getting details. $1.3 billion? That’s not even a wall, not even a barrier … We will get back into this tomorrow. Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will have to explain—look at this crowd, look at the country.”
Establishment Republicans were desperate to avoid another bruising shutdown and caved.
They tentatively agreed Monday night to far less money for Trump’s border wall than the White House’s $5.7 billion wish list, settling for a figure of nearly $1.4 billion, according to congressional aides. The funding measure is through the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.
The $1.4 billion would build just 55-miles of border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border — far less than the 215 miles the White House demanded in December.
It’s not clear whether Trump will support the deal, although GOP negotiators said they were hopeful.
The fencing would be built in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
“With the government being shut down, the specter of another shutdown this close, what brought us back together I thought tonight was we didn’t want that to happen” again, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
Details won’t be officially released until Tuesday, but the pact came in time to alleviate any threat of a second partial government shutdown this weekend.
Asked if Trump would back the deal, Shelby said: “We believe from our dealings with them and the latitude they’ve given us, they will support it. We certainly hope so.”
But Hannity, a Trump ally, said the barrier money in the agreement was inadequate.
Trump traveled to El Paso, Texas, for a campaign-style rally Monday night focused on immigration and border issues. He has been adamant that Congress approve money for a wall along the Mexican border and he took to the stage as lawmakers back in Washington were announcing their breakthrough.
“They said that progress is being made with this committee,” Trump told his audience, referring to the congressional bargainers. “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.”
“We can call it anything. We’ll call it barriers, we’ll call it whatever they want,” Trump said earlier Monday. “But now it turns out not only don’t they want to give us money for a wall, they don’t want to give us the space to detain murderers, criminals, drug dealers, human smugglers.”
The president’s supporters have suggested that Trump could use executive powers to divert money from the federal budget for wall construction, though he could face challenges in Congress or the courts.
The negotiations hit a rough patch Sunday amid a dispute over curbing ICE, the federal agency that Republicans see as an emblem of tough immigration policies.
According to ICE figures, 66 percent of the nearly 159,000 illegal immigrants it reported detaining last year were previously convicted of crimes. In 2016 under President Barack Obama, around 110,000 illegal immigrants were detained and 86 percent had criminal records.
The border debate got most of the attention, but it’s just part of a major spending measure to fund a bevy of Cabinet departments. A collapse of the negotiations would have imperiled another upcoming round of budget talks that are required to prevent steep spending cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
The Associated Press contributed to this article