Lawmakers left Washington for a weeklong recess Thursday, showing no urgency to avert a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security that will take effect Saturday morning.
The overwhelming sense of resignation reflected the reality that neither Republicans nor Democrats saw an obvious path forward to resolving their differences over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and whether to rein it in as part of legislation to fund DHS.
Though negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats continue, the trajectory of talks suggest DHS funding will be lapsed for at least 10 days — meaning the soonest any resolution would be reached is in the political hothouse around Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 24.
The lack of progress has even raised the prospect that Trump’s speech to Congress might be postponed, and some Democrats are mulling a boycott.
