(Time)
The White House is holding firm in its request for $5.7 billion for a border wall to end the shutdown, while also demanding billions of dollars more to address other priorities at the southern border, according to a proposal it gave Congressional Democrats Sunday.
In an hour-long meeting with reporters in his office Monday afternoon, Vice President Mike Pence said the proposal is “a result of the discussions that have taken place between the President and the Democratic leadership as well as the productive discussions that took place over the course of this weekend.”
Pence’s staff provided copies of the letter to the roughly 30 journalists in attendance. “You should see this document and this proposal as evidence that we’re listening, we’re incorporating the ideas of the Democrats,” he said. “We just need the Democrats to start negotiating.”
Democrats remain in lockstep that the government needs to reopen before they will pick up talks about Trump’s plans along the U.S.-Mexican border, while Pence reiterated Monday, “The President is not going to reopen the federal government with a promise that negotiations will begin thereafter.”
The Administration’s three-page document, signed by Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, requests $5.7 billion for “construction of a steel barrier for the Southwest border,” the key sticking point in the partial government shutdown as Trump refuses to budge on that figure and Democrats refuse to grant it.
It goes on to request $563 million for 75 additional immigration judges, $211 million to hire 750 additional Border Patrol agents, $571 million for 2,000 additional law enforcement personnel and $4.2 billion for 52,000 detention beds. Then, in what Pence referred to as “consensus items” that he says Democrats agree to, it asks for $800 million for humanitarian needs including medical care and $675 million for technology to detect weapons and drugs at the border. Read more