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On the second day of the first government shutdown of Donald Trump's presidency, one narrative began to rise above the rest: Blame the Democrats. Republican lawmakers and Trump advisers blitzed the airwaves on Sunday to explain why Senate Democrats' demand for a DACA fix tethered to a funding bill is irresponsible and unreasonable. (DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an Obama-era executive policy that allows undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children to live and work here legally. Last September, the Trump administration announced that it would phase out the program.) Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs, proclaimed that "we want to ... solve the DACA issue," but that Democrats' incorrigibility made the task impossible. Trump claimed that Democrats "are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration."

This spin is laughably inaccurate. Four Senate Republicans voted against a bill to keep the government open on Friday; a majority of Democrats simply chose not to bail out the measure since it included no DACA solution. The blame falls primarily on GOP party leadership-which is in thrall to a nativist minority-as well as the White House's hopelessly mixed signals.
But even if the narrative sticks and Democrats take the fall for this shutdown, they made the right call by refusing to prop up the GOP's stopgap funding bill. The administration has negotiated over DACA in bad faith from the very start, and Democrats may never have more leverage than they do today. Standing up for DACA may wind up being bad politics. For the Democratic Party, it is also a moral obligation.

At various points in the DACA debate, all sides have pointed to Donald Trump as the chief impediment to a deal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently admitted that Trump "has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign," and that the GOP can't "figure out what he is for." But it's not actually fair to blame Trump alone for this disaster; the president is plainly uninterested in the details of a final deal-and, more importantly, he did not force Congress' hand on DACA in the first place.

In reality, DACA's demise was the result of maneuvering between state attorneys general and United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Last June, a coalition of 10 state attorneys general, as well as Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, signed a letter threatening to sue the administration if it did not take action on DACA. (Needless to say, all signatories were Republicans.) Their letter gave the administration an ultimatum: Begin phasing out DACA on Sept. 5, or we'll attempt to kill it in court.

One signatory, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III, actually withdrew his signature upon discovering that many DACA recipients "will be of great benefit and service to our country." But the rest stood fast, and on Sept. 5, Sessions announced that the government would begin to "wind down" DACA, halting renewals in October and stripping status starting in March 2018. (Sessions has refused to state whether he colluded with these state attorneys general to justify the rescission of the program, and the Supreme Court's conservative justices have allowed the administration to shield documents that may reveal such collusion.)

The administration has negotiated over in bad faith from the very start, and Democrats may never have more leverage than they dotoday.

Sessions' Sept. 5 announcement injected a great deal of ambiguity into the White House's position on "Dreamers," or DACA beneficiaries. Trump had praised Dreamers during the campaign, and DACA's Republican critics tended to condemn the program as executive overreach rather than lambaste immigrants themselves. But Sessions' speech dripped with malice toward Dreamers, disparaging them as "illegal aliens" who steal jobs from real Americans. It suddenly sounded like the Trump administration opposed DACA as policy, not merely its executive implementation.

Yet Trump himself clearly maintained his support for a measure sparing Dreamers from deportation. Hours after Sessions' address, the president tweeted that if Congress couldn't "legalize DACA," he would "revisit this issue." (He seemed to believe that he could revive the policy that his attorney general had just dismissed as illegal "unilateral executive amnesty.") Nine days later, Trump asked, "Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?" But congressional Republicans took no action, pointing out that DACA does not expire until March 5. (In reality, due to Sessions' "phase-out," about 122 Dreamers lose protection each day.)

Since then, this dynamic-Trump backs Dreamers, Republicans hinder action-has played out in various ways. In September, for instance, Trump allegedly told Democratic leaders that he wouldn't tie a DACA fix to funding for his border wall, but White House staffers promptly reneged on whatever compromise Trump had made behind closed doors. And on Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined a deal with Trump, which McConnell and chief of staff John Kelly promptly thwarted. The president is an inept dealmaker, but his basic desire is clear: He wants to sign some version of a DREAM Act.

Republicans, however, are doing everything in their power to prevent a bill from landing on his desk. The bad faith here is staggering. McConnell secured Sen. Jeff Flake's vote for tax reform in December by promising to bring a compromise immigration bill to the floor in January. Senators quickly struck a bipartisan DACA deal-but GOP Senate leaders scuttled it, citing Trump's apparent opposition. (As if anyone, including Trump, knows what the president would do if handed an immigration bill with concessions from both parties.) On Sunday, House Speaker Paul Ryan declared that Republicans were "negotiating in good faith on DACA," accusing Democrats of blowing up deliberations by demanding a DACA fix alongside any spending bill.

"Negotiating in good faith"? House Republicans' current DACA proposal would literally criminalize Dreamers who fail to stay significantly above the poverty line, subjecting them to imprisonment and deportation. Senate Republicans' proposal would give Dreamers a nonrenewable three-year visa, essentially giving them a 36-month grace period before they have to leave (or get deported). Other GOP hard-liners are insisting that any help for Dreamers be attached to dramatic reductions in legal immigration levels, a nonstarter for many Democrats and Republicans.

Faced with intra-party discord and malevolent prevarication from Republicans, what are Democrats to do about DACA? Rely on more easily broken promises from Ryan, McConnell, and the White House? Go along with the lie that Dreamers can wait until March for relief? Surrender altogether to the whims of a Republican Party dominated by serial fibbers? Of course not. The first DREAM Act was introduced in 2001. Republicans have foiled its passage for 17 years. At some point, Democrats had to draw a line in the sand. That moment arrived on Friday.

A government shutdown is an awful thing. It's a humiliation for the nation that disrupts hundreds of thousands of lives, and it may well provoke backlash against progressives. But Democrats had no other choice. Republicans cannot be trusted to protect Dreamers from a crisis of the GOP's own making. To capitulate on DACA would be an abdication of the Democratic Party's moral responsibilities. Dreamers belong in this country, and Democrats should use every bit of leverage they have to keep them here.

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Standing Up for DACA Could Hurt the Democratic Party-but It's a Moral Obligation

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On the second day of the first government shutdown of Donald Trump's presidency, one narrative began to rise above the rest: Blame the Democrats. Republican lawmakers and Trump advisers blitzed the airwaves on Sunday to explain why Senate Democrats' demand for a DACA fix tethered to a funding bill is irresponsible and unreasonable.

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The closure of nonessential offices of the government due to lack of approval on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

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The Republicans and the democratic couldn't come to an agreement on DACA nor medicaid.

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DACA students will be deported back to their country after it expires.

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Some people will be furloughed and people who work for the government will have to report to work and not get paid.

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Donald Trump signed a bill ending the Government shutdown and extends funds for three weeks.

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January 20, 2018 shut down
January 22, 2018 reopened
February 8, 2018 the extension ends

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The government shut down after the Senate failed to pass a budget bill on Friday to continue funding government operations. The federal government has ceased all but essential services until Senate Democrats and Republicans can strike a compromise and pass a bill.

Nonessential employees are furloughed, meaning they are told to not report to work. These employees include some State Department workers, U.S. intelligence agencies, the Internal Revenue Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mail will still be delivered, and airports will operate as normal, as Transportation Safety Administration employees will continue to work and receive back pay once the government is reopened. The military will not shut down- it is considered an essential function, so all active duty members will work as usual. They will not, however, receive normal pay, and should expect back pay, along with workers at national parks and the Justice Department.

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The investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election will not be affected. The investigation, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, is funded indefinitely, so the team will continue to work as normal.

Medicaid and Medicare will continue to insure senior, low-income and disabled people during the shutdown. The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a central issue in the current spending bill, will still be funded, though some states will run out of money by the end of the month unless an agreement is made on how to continue it.

The shutdown is also centered on a debate around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, who are known as Dreamers, to remain in the country.

Democrats want a deal to protect the estimated 700,000 DACA recipients from deportation, since President Donald Trump ended the program back in September. A federal judge blocked Trump's ruling last week, extending protections until at least March 5, but Democrats want to ensure a more permanent fix.

The last time the government shut down was in October 2013, when Congress was embroiled in a debate over funding Obamacare. The 16-day shutdown cost an estimated $24 billion in economic output and left around 800,000 nonessential federal employees furloughed. The national parks system lost about 700,000 visitors per day, and NASA ceased operations.

"This is the first government shutdown in the history of the United States when one party has controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency," said Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez of California in a statement. "Children from working families are on the verge of losing health insurance, community health centers are on the path to a fiscal cliff, DREAMers are losing status daily, and emergency disaster funding still hasn't been allotted."

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What is a government shutdown? What it means for Americans

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The government shut down after the Senate failed to pass a budget bill on Friday to continue funding government operations. The federal government has ceased all but essential services until Senate Democrats and Republicans can strike a compromise and pass a bill. Nonessential employees are furloughed, meaning they are told to not report to work.