Senators race to end US government shutdown

Republican and Democratic senators raced on Sunday to try to break an impasse and hammer out a deal that would end a two-day-old US government shutdown before the start of the work week.

In a flurry of negotiations, the two parties’ leaders in the Senate huddled behind closed doors following discussions by a bipartisan group of moderate lawmakers who said they made progress toward a compromise to reopen federal agencies before Monday morning.

While there were no signs of an immediate breakthrough, an emerging agreement appeared to involve ending the deadlock inreturn for a promise by majority Republicans to deal with Democrats’ immigration concerns in coming weeks.

The decision on whether to move forward was in the hands of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Chuck Schumer, although uncertainty remained over how President Donald Trump would respond to any deal.

As the two parties continued to exchange blame for the shutdown, it was unclear whether they would be able to strike an agreement. McConnell set a crucial procedural vote for 1 am on Monday on a temporary spending bill.

Roy Blunt, a junior member of the Republican Senate leadership, said there was a “chance” of a resolution on Sunday night. But John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, told reporters when asked if he thought the government would remain shuttered on Monday: “Right now, yeah. I do.”

Funding for federal agencies ran out at midnight on Friday and was not renewed amid a dispute between Trump and Democrats over the politically acrimonious issue of immigration.

Refusing to support another short-term government funding extension last week, Democrats demanded that the Republican president live up to an earlier agreement to protect “Dreamers,”immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, from deportation.

“We need to have a substantive answer, and the only person who can lead us to that is President Trump. This is his shutdown,” Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said on the CBS “Face the Nation” program.