US government shuts down as Trump feuds with Democrats

Washington : The US government shut down at midnight on Friday after Democrats and Republicans, locked in a bitter dispute over immigration and border security, failed to agree on a last-minute deal to fund its operations.

But both sides may now be even less willing to make concessions because a political defeat on the issue could be costly, especially with the control of Congress up for grabs at midterm elections later this year.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a stopgap funding measure on Thursday. But Republicans then needed the support of at least 10 Democrats to pass the bill in the Senate. While five Democrats ended up voting for the measure, five Republicans voted against it.

Democratic leaders wanted the measure to include protections from deportation for about 700,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

Despite bipartisan negotiations, Republican leaders refused to include those protections, and neither side was willing to back down.

Trump, who had made strict measures on immigration a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, last week rejected a bipartisan proposal.

He said he wanted to include any deal for Dreamers in a bigger legislative package that also boosted funding for a wall and tighter security measures along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Schumer met with Trump on Friday afternoon and later said he had reluctantly agreed to include the border wall in the negotiations but that it still was not enough to persuade Trump to find a compromise.

McConnell said he would seek over the weekend a new funding bill that covered the federal government through to Feb. 8. 

A Senate Democratic source said that was still too far out. Democrats had argued for an extension of just four or five days to force both sides into serious negotiations on the immigration issue.