Democrats seen to lose leverage over agreement to reopen government

WASHINGTON -- By the time a three-day government shutdown ended Monday, Democrats had not only failed to win legal protection for young immigrants, but had publicly accepted President Trump's premier campaign demand for a wall on the southern border.

Progressives were furious that Senate Democrats had ``caved'' on the shutdown, voting for a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government Monday, while securing nothing but a promise from Republican leaders to hold what Democrats described as a ``neutral and fair'' debate on immigration that would include providing legal status for 690,000 young immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Status for Childhood Arrivals Program known as DACA.

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris were among the 18 Democrats who voted against the spending bill. The rest of their party rolled en masse to end the shutdown, with all the noes in the final 81-18 tally coming from the liberal wing of the party. The House later joined the Senate on a 266-150 vote, sending it to Trump for his signature.

The measure to fund government through Feb. 8 includes provisions to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program and roll back several health-care taxes.

Voting to end the shutdown ``was a bad political maneuver,'' said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political action committee fueled by a million grassroots activists. Democrats ``didn't have a coherent message,'' Taylor said. ``What we were advising Democrats from day one is that there needed to be a simple message: Republicans are using their power to hurt children and tear families apart. They needed to say that over and over and over.''

Immigration hardliners said the shutdown handed Trump even more leverage to demand restrictions on legal immigration in exchange for any DACA deal, pointing to concessions made by two prominent Democrats on Trump's border wall.

At a private meeting with the president last Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he had ``put the wall on the table'' in exchange for protecting the young immigrants.

And one of the preeminent advocates for the young immigrants, Chicago Democrat Luis Gutierrez, went even further, saying on national television Sunday that he would ``build the wall myself if it helps the Dreamers,'' as the young immigrants are often called. ``Because a brick for lives, OK? Let's do it,'' he said.

``Now that Democrats have basically caved on wall funding, the White House is probably emboldened,'' said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a restrictionist group that aligns with the Trump administration.

``They won this one,'' Krikorian said of the White House. ``They're going to say, OK, we're going to insist on these other things because the visa lottery and chain migration are pretty unpopular.''

Krikorian is referring to two major categories of legal immigration that Trump wants to restrict -- in addition to building a wall -- in exchange for legal status for the young immigrants. Republicans have adopted the term ``chain migration'' to refer to extended family visas for immigrants, who in addition to their spouses and children, can also sponsor adult siblings, parents and adult children under the current law. Trump and Republicans want to cancel the visas for these relatives.

Republicans also want to cancel the diversity visa lottery, which provides 50,000 visas a year from countries with low levels of immigration to the United States. Created in 1990 to assist Irish nationals, the visa lottery is now used predominantly by Africans and residents of former Soviet client states.

Both demands are anathema to Democrats.

``The Republicans stand for reversing the clock to a pre-1965 America,'' said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who blasted the Senate agreement to debate immigration in exchange for a vote to reopen government as ``meaningless.''

``It's no coincidence that anyone who wants to lead our party in 2020 voted against the deal,'' Khanna said. ``I don't think you could have voted for this and be a contender for leading the party.''

The shutdown began on Friday at midnight when most Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans voted against a House-passed funding bill that would keep the government open until Feb. 16 and reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program. Democrats insisted that the bill also contain legal protections for the young immigrants, along with other budget concessions.

Disruptions to government services over the weekend were minimal, but as the shutdown bled into the regular work week Monday, becoming more visible to the public, roughly a dozen Democratic moderates began to insist that the shutdown end.

They leaped at an offer by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to allow an open Senate debate on immigration, which Schumer said meant consideration of legislation that is ``neutral and fair to both sides.''

Harris, a first-term Democrat widely considered a potential presidential prospect, last summer became the first prominent Democrat to say she would vote against any spending bill until the young immigrants are protected. ``I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word,'' Harris said Monday, referring to McConnell.

More Democrats, including Feinstein, gradually followed. The young immigrants, known as Dreamers, have become increasingly aggressive on the issue, some blaming Democrats for pushing a health care overhaul that led to the Affordable Care Act instead of fixes on immigration at the start of the Obama administration, when the party had unified control of Congress and the White House.

Feinstein, running for re-election this year, has come under harsh criticism from her chief challenger, Democrat Kevin DeLeon, for not being aggressive enough on the DACA issue.

Feinstein said she voted against the spending bill both Friday and Monday ``for one reason: It didn't include the Dream Act, as has been repeatedly promised,'' referring to a bill that would provide legal status to a much broader group of young immigrants than those enrolled in DACA.

``We've debated the Dream Act for 17 years, and for 17 years Republicans have blocked the bill,'' Feinstein said.

The vote to reopen government came with no promise that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would take up legislation to protect the DACA recipients. Such legislation would probably pass the House with votes from Democrats and at least two dozen Republicans, but GOP leaders have blocked such bills.

House Republicans have blocked two major Senate immigration overhauls since 2006, while another, in 2013, failed to clear the Senate because of GOP opposition. And White House spokesman Sarah Sanders made clear Monday that Trump opposes any DACA deal that does not also restrict legal immigration.

Activist were dismayed by Monday's developments.

``What we've learned is you don't win when you're negotiating from a position of weakness and you don't win when you give up bargaining chips,'' said Taylor, the progressive activist.

Progressive groups ``are now looking at how to get back on offense'' by making Dreamers an election-year issue, focusing on two open Senate seats in Arizona and a Republican seat in Nevada, where incumbent Dean Heller is seeking re-election.

``We have to show that Republicans are going to pay in Nevada and Arizona if they continue their attacks on families and children, continue to tear families apart, continue to deport immigrants who don't know any other country,'' Taylor said. ``That's how you go back on offense and regain consistency in what you're saying.''