WASHINGTON -- House Democrats are prepared to support increased spending on border security, but not a wall, if President Donald Trump agrees to reopen the government first, lawmakers and aides said Wednesday.
The proposal, which Democrats are drafting into a formal letter to Trump, will include border security improvements such as retrofitting ports of entry, new sensors and drones, more immigration judges and border patrol agents, and additional technology, among other measures.
The letter was not final and the exact figure Democrats will suggest was not yet determined, but lawmakers and aides said it would be higher than the levels Democrats have supported in the past, which have ranged from $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion.
"We are going to be talking about substantial sums of additional money to be invested to secure the borders," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "And it will be a substantial figure."
Some Democrats suggested they would even be willing to meet Trump's request for $5.7 billion -- as long as it goes for technology and other improvements, not the physical wall the president is seeking.
"Using the figure the president put on the table, if his $5.7 billion is about border security, then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall," House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., told reporters Wednesday.
While Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat, did not say Wednesday how much money Democrats were willing to spend, Clyburn proffered the highest Democratic number yet, "so long as it's done smartly, not just done to fulfill a campaign promise that never should have been made in the first place -- unless you're going to keep the full campaign promise, which is have Mexico pay for it."
Trump has proposed having Congress fund his $5.7 billion demand for a border wall. In exchange, he's offering temporary deportation relief for some immigrants, including young immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally with their parents. Their legal status is now at risk because Trump is seeking to end the program that protects them.
Trump, on a conference call Wednesday with state and local leaders, stressed he would not back off his demand for $5.7 billion for the wall. "We need this approved," he said. Republicans "have to stick together."
He acknowledged "there's pressure because of the shutdown" but thinks Democrats are feeling it more.
The potential new offer from Democrats comes during severe disruptions in some federal services as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history stretches into a second month and 800,000 federal workers are scheduled to miss another paycheck on Friday.
The House has been passing bills all month that would reopen the government without funding the wall, and Democrats plan to do so again later this week. Some members reported pleas for help from constituents who've been hurt by the shutdown.
"I had a farmer who is eligible for those extra credits that the president was offering for farmers hurt by his trade policy, she can't get those extra credits because [the Agriculture Department] is shut down," said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa. "And the Democrats are totally for border security but we need to have a real conversation about it so let's get the government open and then talk border security."
The House Democratic caucus has largely remained unified behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., throughout the shutdown, although there have been isolated expressions of anxiety about Pelosi's strategy of refusing to negotiate until the government is reopened.
Speaking on KFGO radio in Fargo, N.D., on Tuesday, moderate Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said that Democrats should "Give Trump the money" and bring the shutdown to an end.
"Why are we fighting over this? We're going to build that wall anyway, at some time," Peterson said, adding: "When I bring up what I have to say [to Democrats], they look at me cross-eyed."
Peterson's view was a distinct minority, with other House Democrats agreeing the government needed to reopen before further negotiations could take place.
"There's an overwhelming consensus that this is about establishing that shutdowns are wrong," said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J. "From my standpoint, and I think this is the consensus of the caucus, everything is negotiable. Border security is negotiable. Immigration policy is negotiable. Shutting down the government is not negotiable, and we're angry about it."
Malinowski went on: "If we give in to this tactic in any way, we will validate it, and there will be no end to these shutdowns, and the people who suffer today will be suffering again and again and again. We cannot have that."
The Senate will vote today on two separate proposals: One, backed by Trump, would include $5.7 billion for the wall and extend protections to some immigrants in the country illegally while sharply curtailing access to asylum. The other, backed by Democrats, would simply fund shuttered government agencies through Feb. 8, with no wall money.
It is unlikely that either of those measures will muster the 60 votes necessary for passage.
White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Fox News Channel that Democrats should support the Trump proposal.
"The plan includes things that Democrats have specifically said they wanted to see, things that we know they want. It's outrageous that they wouldn't support a plan that does all of the things that they claim to want," Sanders said.
"Democrats have got to stop playing politics. Nancy Pelosi has got to start putting the American people ahead of partisan politics."
Shortly before the shutdown began, the full Senate passed a bill like the one Democrats will push today to reopen the government for a short period without funding the wall. But after conservative backlash, Trump turned against it, resulting in the shutdown that began Dec. 22.
"Let me be very clear. These two votes are not equivalent votes," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor, speaking about the votes that will take place today. "It's not on the one hand, on the other hand. The president's proposal demands a wall and radical legal immigration changes in exchange for opening up the government. The second vote demands nothing in exchange for opening up the government."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., disputed Schumer's remarks, calling his stance "downright silly."
"The president's compromise offer should command serious consideration in both houses of Congress," McConnell said. "It's hard to think of a good reason to oppose this but my Democratic friends are trying to come up with something, anything, to prolong the stalemate."
Concerns about the toll the shutdown is taking on the federal workforce, important services provided by agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, Transportation Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service -- as well as on the economy itself -- have compounded daily. Union members were holding protests around the Capitol on Wednesday and planned to march to McConnell's office and hold a sit-in until they get arrested.
On Wednesday the White House's top economist said the economy could completely stall in the first three months of 2019 if the government shutdown does not end.
The comments by White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett, in a CNN interview, represented the most dire forecast yet from a Trump administration official on the shutdown's economic toll.
Hassett was asked if the economy's growth rate for the first quarter of the year could fall to zero percent if policymakers don't step in soon.
"Yes, we could" see that, he said. "If it extended for the whole quarter, and given the fact that the first quarter [growth rate] tends to be low because of residual seasonality, then you could end up with a number very close to zero in the first quarter."
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner, John Wagner, Mike DeBonis, Damian Paletta and Rhonda Colvin of The Washington Post; by Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor, Lisa Mascaro, Jill Colvin, Catherine Lucey, Kevin Freking, Matthew Daly and Laurie Kellman of The Associated Press; and by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times.
A Section on 01/24/2019