BRIDGEWATER, N.J. -- President Donald Trump said Sunday that he would consider shutting down the government if Democrats refuse to vote for his immigration proposals, including a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The president's warning, which he has made before, escalates the stakes ahead of a Sept. 30 government funding deadline. Republican congressional leaders hope to avoid a political showdown before the November midterm elections.
"I would be willing to 'shut down' government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!" Trump tweeted. "Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT!
"We need great people coming into our Country!" Trump said.
Trump returned to the idea of shutting down the government over immigration policy after meeting at the White House last week with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to discuss the fall legislative agenda.
In recent days, the president has spoken with several outside political allies who have urged him to strike a tougher line on the border wall as a means of pressuring Democrats and rallying his core voters in November, according to two people briefed on those discussions.
[U.S. immigration: Data visualization of selected immigration statistics, U.S. border map]
McConnell, asked about a shutdown during a radio interview in Kentucky, said it was not going to happen. He acknowledged, however, that the border funding issue was unlikely to be resolved before the midterm elections.
Ryan said after the meeting that "the president's willing to be patient to make sure that we get what we need so that we can get that done." He added that money for the wall was "not a question of if; it's a question of when."
Trump campaigned on the promise of building a border wall to deter illegal immigration and of making Mexico pay for it. Mexico has refused.
In the past, Trump has requested as much as $25 billion for the wall. He also wants changes to legal immigration, including scrapping a visa lottery program. In addition, he wants to end the practice of releasing immigrants caught entering the country illegally on the condition that they show up for court hearings.
Trump has also demanded that the U.S. shift to an immigration system that's based more on merit and less on family ties.
Both the House and Senate rejected immigration bills this year that included the president's goals. The Senate measure failed by a wide margin -- an outcome that a spokesman for the Democratic leader, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, recalled Sunday in response to the president's tweet.
"The bill he's describing only got 39 votes in the Senate floor," said the spokesman, Matt House. "He should learn from his mistakes."
A spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, was equally caustic. "President Trump should stay on the golf course and stay out of the appropriations process," said the spokesman, Drew Hammill. "Democrats are committed to keeping government open."
The federal budget year ends Sept. 30, and lawmakers will spend much of August in their states campaigning for re-election. The House is now in recess, returning after Labor Day. The Senate remains in session and is set to go on break the week of Aug. 6 before returning for the rest of the month. McConnell canceled most of the Senate's recess to give senators time to work on the annual spending bills that fund government operations.
Both chambers will have a short window to approve a spending bill before government funding expires.
Both last year and this year, Trump said he would shut down the government if Democrats didn't agree to fund construction of the wall. Both times, Democrats refused, and both times, Trump agreed to sign spending bills that did not include funds for a new wall along the southern border.
Spending bills have appropriated funds to replace existing walls or barriers, something Trump has tried to promote to his supporters as signs of progress. The most recent spending bill funded $1.6 billion for border barriers, but that money does not apply to new construction.
There was a brief government shutdown in January after Senate Democrats refused to back a spending package because of Trump's move to potentially force the deportation of immigrants who had been brought to the United States illegally as children. But Democratic solidarity over the matter did not last long, and they backed down quickly.
Despite Trump's threat, some Republican lawmakers doubted the government would be forced to shut down.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on CBS' Face the Nation that he didn't think shutting down the government just before the elections would be helpful, "so let's try and avoid it."
Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for GOP House candidates, also said he doesn't think a shutdown would happen.
"I think we're going to make sure we keep the government open, but we're going to get better policies on immigration," he said on ABC's This Week. "The president, I think, wants us to have policies that work for America and work for Americans, and I think that's what we are going to move forward with."
House Republicans released a spending bill this month that provides $5 billion next year to build Trump's wall.
The $5 billion is well above the $1.6 billion in the Senate version of the bill, which would finance the Homeland Security Department. The higher amount matches what Trump has privately sought in conversations with Republican lawmakers, according to a GOP congressional aide who wasn't authorized to publicly talk about private discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Two leading Democrats -- Reps. Nita Lowey of New York and Lucille Roybal-Allard of California -- called the $5 billion a waste that "only further enables this administration's obsession with cruel attacks on immigrants."
Separately Sunday, Trump tweeted that there are "consequences when people cross our Border illegally" and claimed that many who do so are "using children for their own sinister purposes."
Trump's tweet came several days after the government said more than 1,800 children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy have been reunited with parents and sponsors. A federal judge had ordered that the reunions be completed by last Thursday, but hundreds of children remain separated. The administration says some of their parents have criminal histories.
"Please understand, there are consequences when people cross our Border illegally, whether they have children or not - and many are just using children for their own sinister purposes," Trump said.
He also said Congress must fix "the DUMBEST & WORST immigration laws anywhere in the world!" and urged voters to "Vote 'R'" in the midterm elections.
Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville, Lisa Mascaro and Alan Fram of The Associated Press; by Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Damian Paletta and Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post; by Ben Brody and Steven T. Dennis of Bloomberg News; and by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/30/2018