In what appears to be a win for President Trump, a bipartisan agreement has been reached in the Senate Appropriations Committee on a $4.6 billion funding package to address the “humanitarian crisis” at the southern border with Mexico.
CNN reports that the agreement, according to three people familiar with the deal, between Chairman Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the panel, includes $2.88 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services to be directed to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which administration officials warned lawmakers would run out of money by the end of this month without the emergency cash infusion.
The Committee will reportedly mark up the agreement on Wednesday and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he plans to put it on the Senate floor by the end of next week.
Of course there is one hitch to all of this… The House (where, as Bloomberg notes, Democrats have sought to ensure that funds in the package wouldn’t be used to build Trump’s border wall or pay for raids on undocumented immigrants within the US).
As Bloomberg notes, The House plans to vote on a separate border package next week, according to Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who has become a point person on the issue for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
If that plan differs from the Senate effort, the House and Senate could convene a conference committee to work out the differences.
Which means it won’t see the light of day as it appears, despite much begging for money and assistance from the left, the public face of the Democratic House refuses to admit there is any illegal immigration crisis whatsoever.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/31JEQuW Tyler Durden