At a time US President Donald Trump was planning to celebrate completing a year in office, his party got embroiled in a bitter political fight with Democrats, leading to the federal government shutting down before the weekend, with thousands of workers on unpaid holiday as Senate Democrats blocked a stopgap deal that the House of Representatives passed. The depth of the fallout isn’t just that US troops based overseas can’t watch the weekend NFL games as US Army channels are shut. The issue goes deeper, and has to do with the big fight over Mr Trump’s immigration policies. As the main parties wrangle over the shutdown, lakhs of people took to the streets in Los Angeles and New York denouncing the Trump administration, in a virtual repeat of the first Women’s March that greeted his election as President.
Immigration issues are at the heart of the problem, and the Republicans’ anger doesn’t cut much ice as they had done the same to Barack Obama, forcing a government shutdown in 2013. In the sense, the Republicans are reaping what they sowed. Mr Trump accused Democrats of prioritising illegal immigrants over US citizens, but while the “Dreamers” may have been brought to America as children, they have lived there most of their lives. While the possible terror links of West Asian refugees may have given Mr Trump a handle to put sweeping curbs in place, the plight of eight lakh-plus Dreamers might draw far more sympathy in America.
Mr Trump’s shifting position hasn’t helped matters. Any credible deal to resolve the shutdown may depend on Mr Trump yielding ground on measures like deporting people.
