US government shutdown latest: Democrats and Republicans trade blame as no deal reached on budget bill

The US government has ground to a partial halt as Congress proved unable to agree on a budget bill, with Democrats and Republicans trading blame for the shutdown.

Disagreement over a cluster of intractable policy fights – headlined by the dispute over an expired program known as DACA that shielded nearly 800,000 young illegal immigrants in the country from deportation – left Congress without a deal to keep funding the government as midnight struck on Friday. Democrats in the Senate were largely unified in voting against a measure that would have kept the government open without settling the DACA issue.

Mr Trump and top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer were reportedly close to clearing the impasse during a Friday meeting, agreeing to the outlines of a deal that fell apart over continued disagreement on immigration. Mr Schumer said Mr Trump reneged on the deal and did not do enough to sell it to Republicans, having “backed off at the first sign of pressure”.

“Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jello,” Mr Schumer said.

In an afternoon press conference, Office of Management and Budget chief Mick Mulvaney accused Mr Schumer of negotiating in bad faith by offering to allocate only a sliver of the total needed to construct the border wall. White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short said negotiations over underlying issues could proceed once Democrats agreed to fund the government, while Mr Schumer rejected a short-term extension.

In the hours that followed the shutdown, which will suspend or curtail some government services and furlough non-essential employees, the President and legislative leaders in both parties blamed each other.

The President and fellow Republicans sought to pin the blame on Democrats, with Mr Trump doubling down on past suggestions that they are embracing illegal immigration or are indifferent to supplying the military with needed resources. In a sign that he believed the American people would fault the other party, Mr Trump called the shutdown a “nice present” from Democrats.

“Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Can’t let that happen!” the President said in a morning tweet.

His press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued a statement assailing Democrats for “the behaviour of obstructionist losers, not legislators”.

“We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands,” Ms Sanders said.

Democrats have accused Mr Trump of endangering hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who are effectively Americans.

They blasted Republicans at a morning press conference next to a poster displaying a May 2017 tweet in which the President had said “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’”, a reference to how Mr Trump has threatened a shutdown as a means to wring immigration concessions, like funding for a border wall with Mexico.

New York Democrat Joe Crowley accused Republicans of having “failed the American people” and of “enabling and being complicit in this Trump shutdown”. Democrats argued that given their firm grip on the levers of power, Republicans shouldered responsibility.

“The #GOP control the floor agenda. They control the House, Senate & White House. They own this #TrumpShutdown,“ California Democrat Ted Lieu said on Twitter.

In a Senate floor speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted “a cynical decision by Senate Democrats to shove aside millions of Americans for the sake of irresponsible political gains”. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Democrats were “deliberately holding our government hostage”.

“We do some crazy things in Washington, but this is utter madness,” Mr Ryan said from the House floor.

Unable to resolve disputes around a series of key policy issues, Congress has resorted to a series of short-term funding stopgaps during Mr Trump’s presidency.

With each temporary fix, they have deferred long-term solutions to a lapsed children’s health insurance program, military spending levels and immigration.

Immigration is the most politically charged of the three. Democrats are determined to revive DACA, which Barack Obama launched and Mr Trump nixed, while Mr Trump has demanded measures to limit both legal and illegal immigration.

Foremost among the President’s demands has been border security in the form of funding for his proposed wall. He has also tied DACA’s renewal to cancelling a diversity visa lottery and ending a method for legal immigrants bringing their relatives to the country, a feature of America’s family-based immigration system.

Budget brinkmanship has become a regular spectacle in Congress. Under Mr Obama, the Republican-controlled Congress unsuccessfully sought to use budget fights as leverage to derail Mr Obama’s healthcare law.