US House and Senate negotiators reach deal on border security funding

The agreement in principle on a spending bill would avert a government shutdown, said Senator Richard Shelby. US congressional negotiators said late on Monday, the deal is due to start on Saturday.

‘We reached an agreement in principle between us on all the homeland security and the other six bills,’ Senator Richard Shelby said.

The decision comes ahead of the Friday deadline that was set to avoid another partial US government shutdown, as congressional negotiators said they aimed to reach the deal on border security funding by Monday night.

'Our staffs are going to be working feverishly to put all the particulars together,' Mr. Shelby said. It was still unclear whether, president Donald Trump would get any money for a US-Mexico border wall.

While the details of the deal have yet to be revealed, reports say lawmakers were confident that if the agreement was supported and signed by Trump, it could resolve an on-going dispute over US immigration

Trump’s detention of undocumented immigrants had previously put a stop to any progress talks. One specific point of disagreement had been the number of detention beds under the control of immigration officers.

Background

The Democrats have long disputed the overall number of detention beds, including those occupied by asylum seekers and people caught at the border, from 49,000 to 34,000, while the Republicans want the numbers to increase.

Trump said: ’These are people coming into our country that we are holding and we don’t want in our country,’ He told reporters at the White House late Monday.

‘That’s why they don’t want to give us what we call ‘the beds.’ It’s much more complicated than beds, but we call them from ‘the beds.’ He said.

Democratic representative Nita Lowey said she had been in touch with the white Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was confident in the decision.

'I hope by Wednesday we'll have a finished product.' Lowey said.