Trump wrongly claims Democrats won't fund border security

Trump wrongly claims Democrats won't fund border security

President Trump claimed that "the federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security.”

It’s not true that Democrats oppose funding for border security, they just aren't willing to meet Trump’s demand for more than $5 billion in wall funding. Congressional Democratic leaders have offered funding for roughly $1.3 billion for border security in the current shutdown fight.

That offer remains on the table.

Border security has been a cornerstone of Democratic immigration proposals for years. The Obama-backed comprehensive immigration bill in 2013, which passed with unanimous Democratic support, would have added up to 40,000 Border Patrol agents and deploy more than $3 billion for technology upgrades at the border. House Republicans refused to vote on the proposal and it never reached Obama’s desk.

House Democrats voted last week to approve a stop-gap funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that would not allocate new wall funding, but would maintain the current $1.3 billion in border security money. Last year, the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a DHS funding bill for fiscal year 2019 on a bipartisan basis that would allocate

$1.6 billion for roughly 65 miles of fencing in the Rio Grande Valley, but the full Senate has not yet approved that measure.