| | | | BY PHILIP ELLIOTT
Senior Correspondent, TIME | You know it's bad when the TSA officers at airports are checking your bags alongside boxes seeking canned goods, gift cards, and baby formula for those same screeners. Yet this is where we are as a partial government shutdown enters its second month, leaving thousands of federal workers forced to choose between continuing at their posts unpaid or finding other jobs. | In Washington, this would normally be an all-hands moment. Shutdowns are supposed to be highly embarrassing events for the country's leaders, the kind that dominate the discourse as the President and Congress hold high-stakes negotiations to end them. This shutdown is nothing like that. Instead, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are quietly passing notes to one another like we're in study hall, the latest coming late Tuesday afternoon. | Even as the lengthening security line chaos at airports stand to infuriate millions of travelers, the negotiations to end the shutdown are surprisingly sluggish, according to Hill aides. And there isn't much effort by either side to keep the public engaged on the issue. Whereas each round of negotiations in past shutdowns would make headlines, the offers and counteroffers are passing back and forth under disciplined secrecy, and no one seems to be taking them all that seriously. | A handful of players have been involved in detailed talks. Even though those seem to be going nowhere, nudges from the likes of Sens. Elyssa Slotkin, Jeanne Shaheen, and Tim Kaine to back-channel conversations have been poo-poo'd by party leadership as unhelpful. | Funding lapsed on Feb. 15. The White House made an overture on Feb. 27 that was met with unified rejection from Democrats. | Another effort came late Tuesday, when the White House revealed some details about what it would accept: expanding use of body cameras; limiting immigration enforcement at sensitive locations like schools and hospitals; increasing some oversight; and requiring officers to wear "visible identification." The White House did not accept Democrats' demands on warrants and maskless patrols. | | It was the most open offer yet, but still left Hill players in both parties in a jam. Republicans have tried to float ideas for an off-ramp strategy but have found few willing Democrats to talk with. It's not that Democrats are against negotiations but rather they don't think there's a point looking for a deal without explicit buy-in from the White House. White House players like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her two deputies, Stephen Miller and James Blair, are in the mix of negotiations, though most Democrats are skeptical they have the authority to make deals when Trump appears unwilling to bend. The latest White House proffer came signed by the administration's border czar and legislative director—powerful men but still not the President. | TSA screeners have now missed their first full paychecks, lines are out the doors at major airports, and tensions are running high. The complete disconnect between the deteriorating situation and the nonchalance of institutional Washington is simply stunning, especially considering how the status quo could complicate what's forecast to be a record-breaking travel season this spring. | "Americans—who live in your districts and home states—are tired of long lines at airports, travel delays and flight cancellations caused by shutdown after shutdown," U.S.-based carriers wrote in an open letter to Congress on Sunday. "Yet, once again air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown. This problem is solvable, and there are solutions on the table." | Already, more than 300 TSA agents have quit, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Their union says unscheduled call-out rates are triple normal levels as they are choosing to use paid-time-off or sick days rather than work for free. (Under a 2019 federal law, they will eventually get back pay, but it's not comforting as rent comes due in two weeks.) | The clash is born out of Democrats' demands that any funding for the Department of Homeland Security include checks on its operations under Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the hub of President Donald Trump's aggressive campaign against immigrants. ICE and Border Patrol both played a role in the twin killings of Americans in Minneapolis in January that galvanized the nation against the federal crackdown, and spurred Democrats to insist on new rules of conduct for ICE, including coordinating better with local law enforcement, requiring they obtain warrants in some cases, ditching the masks and always wearing body cameras while working. | Republicans initially balked, largely because the Trump White House sees any oversight as surrender. Also, ICE and Border Patrol are continuing their tasks with workers getting paid from funds Republicans approved last year. | | | The GOP lawmakers—even those who do not object to oversight principles—have been left weighing which has more heft: Trump's wrath or the memory of Minneapolis? As time passes, the backlash over the crackdown in Minnesota has seemed less urgent, and Americans' attention has been shifted back to the latest war in the Middle East. | Democrats, meanwhile, see this as their last remaining leverage heading into an election year and are happy to point to the much-hated-by-Trump meme of TACO (short for Trump Always Chickens Out). They can also read polling like everyone else, and the numbers paint a reason for Democratic optimism: an Associated Press poll from January shows Trump's approval on immigration issues fell 10 points in his first year, and a majority of all voters—6 in 10—disapprove his use of federal agents into U.S. cities and say he has "gone too far." And the defections are coming from his base, with a Politico poll of Trump voters from January finding 1 in 5 telling the survey Trump's mass deportations are too aggressive. | The White House, meanwhile, isn't really budging, believing voters elected Trump on the basis of his promises to tighten borders and deport those he thinks should not be here. In fact, some White House allies were hoping Sen. Markwayne Mullin on Wednesday would use his confirmation hearing to take Kristi Noem's place as Secretary of Homeland Security to promise to stick with the Trump policies and even put them on overdrive. | So how does this staring contest end? Republicans seem to be counting on Democrats blinking first as the situation at airports worsens. Their model is last year's Democratic shutdown that aimed to preserve popular health care subsidies under Obamacare. Trump drew a red line and Democrats caved after 43 days. The current shutdown stands at 32 days. | In the meantime, if you're heading to the airport, stock up on Visa gift cards, wear comfortable shoes, and know the folks asking if your pockets are empty are working without any real-time compensation in theirs. | READ THE STORY » | | | | | | | | |
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