Congressional negotiators narrow differences to border barriers, detention beds

[dukkha]

Lawmakers negotiating to end the border wall impasse and prevent another government shutdown narrowed their differences Thursday to two key sticking points — the wall itself and the number of beds the government would fund to detain unauthorized migrants.

The two issues moved in tandem, with Democrats offering more money for border barriers in exchange for fewer detention beds. Democrats are trying to limit the Trump administration’s ability to detain border crossers, preferring alternatives such as ankle bracelets. Republican negotiators are in favor of both more barrier funding and expanded detention centers.

It’s not yet clear what the deal will contain as far as physical barriers at the border, and Trump has been inconsistent in describing what type of structure would qualify as a wall.

Negotiators hope to finalize a deal over the next several days, in time to unveil it officially by Monday and ensure House and Senate passage by the Feb. 15 deadline when government funding will run out. A lapse in funding would precipitate another shutdown, three weeks after the last one ended on its 35th day.

Lawmakers of both parties voiced cautious optimism. President Trump, whose demands for $5.7 billion for U.S.-Mexico border walls precipitated the earlier standoff, met in the morning with Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) and later sounded a relatively positive note about the negotiations — which the president had previously dismissed as a “waste of time.”

“We’ll see what happens, but I certainly hear they’re working on something, and both sides are moving along,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ll see what happens. We need border security. We have to have it. It’s not an option. Let’s see what happens.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.789bca57a0cf

[dukkha]

Congress needs to change the asylum laws, limiting beds is just more catch and release.
Since Congress is so fucked up it can barely fund government - i guess this is all that gets done

It only took a shutdown, and weeks of negotiations to do the obvious-
what a bunch of asshats

[dukkha]

bump//we'll know monday. House has a rule bills need to be posted 72 hours before a vote
( because they are soooo busy and need time to read it)