Days From Another Shutdown, Here’s What The Negotiators Are Facing

VPM | By Sean McMinn and Susan Davis

Published February 11, 2019 at 11:31 PM EST

Updated April 20, 2023

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., walks to a bipartisan negotiation meeting Monday over securing the U.S. Southern border and keeping the U.S. government from shutting down.

Congressional negotiators are hurtling toward another deadline — Feb. 15 — to avoid a partial government shutdown. A bipartisan group of 17 lawmakers on the House and Senate appropriations committees are working to reach a deal to fund seven of the 12 outstanding annual bills to fund the federal government.

The controversy centers on just one of the funding measures for the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump waged the longest shutdown in U.S. history because the bill did not include enough money to help build his long-promised “wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Much of the negotiation has been concerned with what, exactly, counts as a wall — and how much Congress should authorize to pay for its construction this fiscal year. Lawmakers are also confronting other sticking points, including Democratic efforts to curb the number of detention beds available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

There are indications compromise is possible: Democrats are not ruling out funds for some kind of “physical barriers” on the border, and Trump has offered a more measured tone in recent days. Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., met with the president last week and characterized it as “positive” and the president as being “very reasonable.”

Lawmakers have joked that left alone, they could quickly cut a border security funding deal. The wild card is, was and will remain Trump right up until he signs the remaining bills to fund the government. Asked what the chances are that the negotiations would produce a deal that the president would sign, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney would only say “more than zero.” In the interview with All Things Considered, he added, “A shutdown is technically always on the table.”

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Sean McMinn

Sean McMinn is a data editor on NPR's Investigations team.

Based in Washington, D.C., McMinn reports stories in collaboration with journalists across NPR's network of member stations. He previously worked in the newsroom's News Apps/Visuals team.

McMinn came to NPR from CQ Roll Call, where he covered Congress and politics for three years as a data reporter. While there, he built interactives to help Americans better understand their government, and his reporting on flaws in FEMA's recovery programs led to the agency making changes to better serve communities struck by disaster. He also took part in an exchange with young professionals in North Africa and has spent time in Egypt and Tunisia teaching data visualization and storytelling.

Before that, McMinn taught multimedia journalism to interns through a fellowship with the Scripps Howard Foundation.

He is also an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and at American University.

McMinn is an alumnus of the National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Fellowship and has served as vice-chair at the National Press Club's Young Members Committee. He has also directed the Press Club's Press Vs. Politicians Spelling Bee fundraiser, which pits members of Congress against journalists to raise funds for the club's non-profit journalism institute.

McMinn is from Thousand Oaks, Calif. He holds a journalism degree with a statistics minor from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, where he was a reporter and editor on the student newspaper, Mustang News.

See stories by Sean McMinn