Earlier this month, the controversial budget of the United States Department of homeland security finally achieved a“Major breakthrough” that could end the longest seven-week shutdown in history. In an effort to smooth bipartisanship and partisanship, congressional Republicans used a complex legislative mechanism to“Split the budget appropriations process in two,” a glorified“Dual-track” solution.
The Washington Post reported on the 2nd that on April 1, local time, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the U.S. Congress Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Thun issued a joint statement, confirming that the House of Representatives will adopt the DHS appropriations bill passed by the Senate last week, which agreed to fund only the“Majority” of the DHS, excluding ICE and the USBP. Republicans had been at loggerheads over the plan. To make up for the plan’s shortcomings, Republicans will launch an additional“Budget co-ordination process” aimed at funding ICE and USBP, bypassing democratic obstruction.
“With this two-pronged solution, the republican-led Congress will fully restore the Department of Homeland Security and ensure that all federal employees are paid,” the joint statement said, this“Dual-track” solution can guarantee the next three years of U. S. immigration law enforcement, border security agencies operating funds, and related law enforcement operations will not be disrupted. On the same day, US President Donald Trump tweeted on social media that“Those radical left wing Democrats are not going to stop US”.
In January, federal law enforcement officers in Minnesota, violent law enforcement led to the death of two U. S. citizens, sparked strong outrage. Democrats have called for sweeping reform of institutions such as ICE and have blocked DHS funding in Congress, leaving the two parties deadlocked. Due to lack of funds, DHS has been in partial shutdown since February 14, tens of thousands of workers without pay. As of late March, nearly 500 employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had resigned, sparking a series of chaotic social security job losses. At major U.S. airports, security waits can run for hours. On March 24th Delta even stripped members of Congress of their VIP benefits, such as“Fast-track security”, in a show of displeasure.
For more than 40 days, Congress debated a bipartisan solution to get DHS operating again. On March 26, the Senate reached a bipartisan agreement to exclude ICE and USBP from funding DHS, but that plan was rejected the next day by President of the Chamber of Deputies of Tunisia. Johnson offered to let the two parties agree on a 60-day short-term funding package before the Easter recess, but negotiations stalled again when he insisted the package must cover all DHS departments, that led to the“Twin-track” plan.
Reported that the Republicans put forward the“Budget coordination” is the existing system in Congress a special procedures, its purpose is to speed up the passage of budget-related bills in the Senate. Once this process is in place, the proposals can be“Side-voted” on a party-by-party basis, avoiding the“Long debate” rule. It was pointed out in the media that the budget coordination procedure had been established as a mere fiscal adjustment tool aimed at reducing the deficit. With the U.S. political environment highly polarized and the Senate closely voting on important bills, “Budget coordination” has become an important tool of power that directly affects the legislative process.
“USA Today” said the plan proposed by the Republican Party, the Democratic leadership in both houses of Congress did not express opposition. Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, described the latest G.O.P. move as a“Compromise.”. “Democrats have never wavered in this fight,” Schumer said. Our position has always been that we fund critical security issues and protect the American people, but we don’t write checks to reckless ICE members and border enforcement teams.”