Donald Trump moves to end shutdown, offers compromise on border security

Donald Trump offers an immigration compromise in exchange for wall funding, but the Democrats are set to block it.

US President Donald Trump reveals his plan to end the government shutdown. Picture: AP

Donald Trump has put a new offer to Democrats to break the deadlock which has shut down the US government by offering temporary protection for some immigrants in exchange for funding for his border wall.

But in an address from the White House, the President refused to give ground on his key demand that any spending bill include $5.7 billion for a wall — a demand which has been the key sticking point with Democrats.

His new plan was rejected immediately by Democrats with house speaker Nancy Pelosi releasing a statement ahead of President Trump’s address, saying the proposal was a “compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good-faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives.”

“It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter,” she said.

President Trump said his new proposal was a “compassionate response to the ongoing tragedy on our southern border,” describing it as “straightforward, fair, reasonable and common sense”.

“(This is) a common sense compromise both parties should embrace,” he said.

The President’s move to sweeten his offer was designed to increase pressure on the Democrats to resume negotiations over the shutdown with polls showing that most Americans blame the President for the impasse.

In his new offer, President Trump offered a three-year halt to his efforts to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program which offered temporary protections for around 700,000 Dreamers, the children of illegal immigrants.

Democrats have called for permanent protection for Dreamers, but President Trump’s offer expires after three years.

Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Picture: AP

The President also offered a three-year suspension of his push to end the program of Temporary Protection Status (TPS) holders. This affects around 300,000 immigrants Latin American and African immigrants who were allowed to came to the US after disasters in their homeland.

In response, Ms Pelosi said President Trump’s plan was unacceptable because it

“does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports.”

In his address President Trump reasserted his believe that a border wall was not “immoral” as Democrats have called it.

He said the $5.7 billion in initial funding would not build a wall from ocean to ocean but would allow for an extra 230 miles (370km) of wall in areas where such a barrier would be most effective.

“The radical left can never control our borders,” President Trump said. “Walls are not immoral ... a steel barrier will help stop illegal immigration.”

The President said his new plan, if backed by Democrats, would immediately reopen the federal government which has been shut for 29 days, the longest on record.

President Trump said if the plan was passed he would follow it up with weekly bipartisan meetings at the White House to develop a permanent and more coherent strategy on immigration and border security.

“Our immigration system has been badly broke for a very long time,’ he said. “We are now living with the consequences and they are tragic.”

“I will never forget that my first duty and ultimate loyalty is to you the American people.”

Speaking earlier, President Trump said his high-profile rift with Democrat house speaker Nancy Pelosi was not personal.

“It’s not personal for me,” he said. “She’s being controlled by the radical left, which is a problem.”

President Trump abruptly postponed Ms Pelosi’s six-day Congressional visit to Europe and Afghanistan last week in retaliation for her public request for him to postpone his state of the union address later this month if the government remained closed.

Ms Pelosi later accused the President of putting herself and fellow Congress members at danger by publicising their plan to visit US troops in Afghanistan.

“You never give advance notice of going into a battle area — you just never do it,” Ms Pelosi said. “Perhaps the President’s inexperience didn’t have him understand that protocol. The people around him, though, should have known that, because that’s very dangerous.”

The partial government shutdown has forced 800,000 federal workers to go without pay since 22 December.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia