Donald Trump to visit the southern US border with Mexico

Donald Trump will visit the Mexico border on Thursday as the partial government shutdown stretches into its third week.

resident Trump will visit the southern U.S border on Thursday. Picture: Nicholas Kamm/ AFP

President Trump will visit the southern US border on Thursday as the partial government shutdown stretches into its third week, with the White House and congressional Democrats continuing to battle over border-wall funding.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a tweet that Mr Trump would meet with “those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis” at the border. She didn’t provide further details about whom Mr Trump would meet and what location he would visit.

Mr Trump is also set to deliver a prime-time address on border security on Tuesday, he tweeted Monday. Broadcast networks are deliberating whether to air the address, people familiar with the matter said.

White House officials and congressional aides met twice over the weekend but reached no agreement over whether to allocate money for Mr Trump’s request for hundreds of miles of a wall along the border. Mr Trump has shifted his messaging from calling for a concrete wall to demanding a “steel barrier” and has said he is considering declaring a national emergency if Congress doesn’t agree to fund the wall. Such an action would invite legal challenges, and it isn’t clear where the funds for a wall would come from in that scenario.

During a private meeting with aides at Camp David on Sunday, Mr Trump said he wanted them to come up with a resolution to the shutdown fight that would reopen the government without him appearing to have capitulated to Democrats, a person familiar with the meeting said. White House officials disputed the account and said Mr Trump didn’t make such a statement.

Because of the partial shutdown, about 420,000 employees deemed essential are working without pay, while another 380,000 federal employees have been placed on unpaid leave, or furlough. The shutdown became the second-longest on record Monday. By Saturday, if the government hasn’t reopened, the shutdown will become the longest in U.S history.

Mr Trump has said he won’t sign any bill funding the government that doesn’t include the $5.7 billion in border-wall funding that was part of a measure signed by the GOP-controlled House in December, before Democrats took over the chamber.

Two Democratic aides said Sunday that an afternoon meeting was delayed by 45 minutes because Republicans weren’t ready with documents to explain why that amount was needed for the wall. The administration eventually provided a list of proposals including US $5.7 billion (AUD $7.9 billion) for “234 miles of new physical barrier” (377km) along the border and requested money for more law enforcement, more immigration judges and more beds in border-detention facilities, according to a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr Trump said Sunday he didn’t expect that day’s meetings, led by Vice President Mike Pence, to result in much, and that “serious talks” would begin on Monday. The only events on the president’s public schedule for the day were a meeting with Mr Pence and an intelligence briefing.

Some of the president’s allies urged him to stick to his commitment to build the border wall even if it means keeping the government closed.

“This continues to be the signature campaign issue that he outlined that needs to be fulfilled,” said Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager. “The president should use every resource available to him, including the military, to build the wall to protect American citizens.”

House Democrats plan to start passing individual spending bills this week to reopen government agencies. Democrats are expected to bring the first bill, to fund the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service, to the floor on Wednesday. The IRS wouldn’t be able to process tax-refund checks if the shutdown continues at length.

The House’s individual spending bills aren’t likely to be taken up in the Senate, given Mr. Trump’s stance, though some GOP senators have indicated they may want Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to break with the president.

The Wall St Journal