VOA常速英语:政府停摆僵持不下 公务员难以养家糊口

President Donald Trump has backed away from a simple demand for border wall funding. Now, he is offering a three-year extension of programs for refugees and immigrants brought illegally to America as minors known as dreamers. If we are successful in this effort, we will then have the best chance in a very long time at real bipartisan immigration reform. Democrats demand permanent protections for all dreamers: Not just those who registered in an Obama administration program known as DACA that shielded them from deportation.
He, Democrats say, Trump’s proposal, is a non-starter. We wanted a pathway to citizenship for all dreamers. He’s just taking a small section of that. Those are the DACA recipients and he’s only giving them a temporary stay. If he really wants to work on comprehensive immigration reform, open the government and then sit down with Democratic leaders to actually work on the stuff that needs to get done. Last year, Trump moved to terminate the very programs. He is now offering to extend and demanding Democrats agree to his terms for doing so. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy tweeted a comparison quote: Imagine if a dude drove his truck into your house on purpose and then told you he would fix the hole for five billion dollars. What would you say?

For Republicans, Democrats’ complete rejection of new physical border barriers is perplexing and hypocritical since an assortment of barriers went up under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent decades. President Clinton built fencing. President HW Bush built fencing. President George W Bush built fencing. President Obama built fencing. This has not been an immoral issue, and the president’s been very clear he’s talking about 234 miles of fencing along a 2,000 mile border. It’s only in the priority areas.
When Congress reconvenes, the republican-led Senate and the democratically-led House of Representatives are both expected to take up funding bills that would be dead on arrival in the other chamber. With Congress deadlocked in the White House, showing no signs of surrender, a deal to reopen shuttered federal agencies and pay government workers remains elusive.
Michael Bowman, VOA news, Washington.