2小时前 | 美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)
国土安全部的停摆似乎很快就会结束。全国范围内机场日益严重的混乱和长达数小时的等待时间，似乎促使国会朝着可能的解决方案迈进。
细节仍在敲定中，事情不到最后一刻就不算完成。包括参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默在内的民主党人表示，他们需要一些真正的让步。一些参议院共和党人正在抱怨。唐纳德·特朗普总统听起来并不兴奋，而且他曾在最后一刻破坏过协议。
但双方似乎都取得了实质性进展，特朗普也没有拒绝任何提议，尽管他有点不高兴。
不过，这一解决方案可能会令许多民主党人失望。
今年1月，联邦特工在明尼阿波利斯枪杀了雷妮·古德和亚历克斯·普雷蒂，此后，绝大多数美国人开始批评特朗普的移民打击政策和美国移民与海关执法局(ICE)。民主党人以推动联邦移民执法问责措施为名，着手扣留国土安全部的资金。
新出现的协议似乎不太可能满足他们的主要诉求。
那么，民主党人为何会支持这项协议？这对他们有什么好处？
首先，让我们深入了解一下已知的协议内容。
基本思路是，双方同意为国土安全部伞下的所有项目提供资金，但不包括移民执法方面。作为交换，民主党人可能会得到一些他们寻求的限制移民执法的小让步——具体细节我们仍在等待——但不会是大笔资金的让步。他们之前的主要诉求包括禁止联邦特工戴口罩、制定特工行为准则以及要求搜查住宅需获得司法令状。
如果协议通过，这将把移民执法相关的资金转移到一项法案中，共和党人将试图通过“预算协调”程序在之后推动该法案通过。协调程序是一种立法策略，根据该策略，法案在参议院只需简单多数票即可通过，因此不需要民主党人的支持。
但通过同意这项协议，民主党人实际上放弃了许多要求特朗普政府进行更大规模移民执法改革的筹码——而这正是他们最初发起停摆的原因。
停摆策略的政治逻辑是制造重大痛点——在此次事件中，机场的混乱——迫使另一方最终让步。
但这次似乎没有达到预期效果。这将令一些民主党人感到沮丧——尤其是考虑到他们推动的许多政策都相当受民众支持。
佛蒙特州民主党参议员彼得·韦尔奇周一试图辩解称，他所在的政党从这次停摆过程中取得了胜利，包括本月早些时候将国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆赶下台。
“事实是，我们取得了重大进展。诺姆离职了。这是一件大事。她鲁莽、违法且腐败。这是巨大的进步，”韦尔奇表示，“第二，ICE（移民与海关执法局）撤离了明尼阿波利斯。基本上，这要归功于明尼阿波利斯勇敢的市民，他们在面临巨大暴力的情况下挺身而出保护邻居。此外，白宫也承认这种大规模围捕政策过于极端。”
这些或许都是民主党人的真正胜利，但这些胜利并非来自停摆斗争的直接筹码。而且，这并不一定能阻止未来在明尼阿波利斯和芝加哥等地可能发生的类似移民打击行动。
在最新的谈判开始之前，有证据表明民主党人仍有筹码。周日发布的哥伦比亚广播公司新闻网-优阁民调(CBS News-YouGov poll)显示，美国人更倾向于支持民主党人的诉求，而非共和党人坚持现状的立场。
差距不大——而且由于与伊朗的战争分散了公众注意力，民主党人很难让公众关注国土安全部资金辩论的细节——但这表明他们本可以继续施压。如果机场的混乱被归咎于共和党人，可能会促使他们做出更大让步。特朗普最近几天已派遣ICE特工前往机场协助，一些民主党人认为这可能会让选民更反感ICE，从而帮助民主党。
同时，民主党人接受这项协议也有政治考量。
其中一个原因是，这意味着他们不必投票支持特朗普的移民执法政策，而这是许多民主党人可能希望避免的投票。
但或许更重要的原因是，这会让共和党人陷入可能艰难的预算协调程序。
毕竟，参议院多数党领袖约翰·图恩(John Thune)之前曾表示，在选举年推动此类程序几乎是不可能的。而这次的协调程序可能会更加棘手。
这是因为特朗普最近几天要求，任何国土安全部资金协议都必须包含《拯救美国法案》(SAVE America Act)。该法案要求美国人登记投票时必须提供公民身份证明，以及其他条款。
但协调程序对纳入法案的内容有特定的预算限制，参议院议事规则专家（ parliamentarian）很可能裁定这些投票相关的变更不符合条件。特朗普会接受这一裁定吗？还是会因坚持要求而再次破坏整个协议？
犹他州共和党参议员迈克·李(Mike Lee)作为特朗普投票法案的坚定支持者，周二警告称，通过协调程序通过该法案“基本上是不可能的”。
协调法案还可能包含白宫据称将寻求的另外2000亿美元用于伊朗战争的资金，即便对许多共和党议员来说，这笔资金也很难获得通过。
事实上，这些问题中的任何一个都可能考验至少部分共和党人对该法案的支持意愿，而共和党议员在参议院（53-47）和众议院（217-214）都没有太多容错空间。
去年最新的协调法案最终成为现代历史上最不受欢迎的法案之一；民主党人现在似乎在为共和党人铺平道路，让他们在2026年中期选举前几个月再次尝试推动类似法案——这可能会是一个漫长的过程。
此外，让共和党人在没有重大改革的情况下资助特朗普的移民打击政策，可能会让民主党人在中期选举中找到攻击共和党人的话题。
这似乎正是民主党人去年放弃更大规模政府停摆时的计算——他们可以让共和党人“承担”拒绝延长广受欢迎的奥巴马医改增强补贴的责任。现在，民主党人可能认为，他们也可以让共和党人“承担”特朗普不受欢迎的移民打击政策的责任。
这绝非万无一失的策略。谁也不知道这些问题在七个月后还会有多重要？
但这可能就是民主党人再次选择的策略。
Are Democrats caving on a shutdown again?
2 hr ago | CNN
It’s looking like the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could soon be over. Increasing chaos and hours-long wait times at the nation’s airports appear to have pushed Congress toward a possible resolution.
Details are still being ironed out, and it’s not done until it’s done. Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have said they need to get some bona fide concessions. Some Senate Republicans are grumbling. President Donald Trump doesn’t sound thrilled and has blown up deals at the last minute before.
But the two sides seem to have made serious progress, and Trump hasn’t rejected anything, even if he’s a little sour.
Still, it’s likely the resolution will disappoint many Democrats.
After federal agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January — and large majorities of Americans became critical of Trump’s immigration crackdown and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — Democrats moved to withhold DHS funding in the name of pushing accountability measures on federal immigration enforcement.
The emerging deal doesn’t appear likely to give them many — and certainly not the major ones.
So why would Democrats support this? And what’s in it for them?
First, let’s dig into what we know about the deal.
The basic idea is that the two sides agree to fund everything under the DHS umbrella except immigration enforcement. In exchange, Democrats could get some of the smaller things they were looking for to restrict that enforcement — we’re still waiting on those details — but not the big-ticket items. Those bigger asks were things like prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks, a uniform code of conduct for agents and requiring judicial warrants for searching homes.
The passage of the deal would, in turn, kick that immigration enforcement funding to a bill Republicans would try to pass later through the “budget reconciliation” process. Reconciliation is a maneuver under which the legislation would require only a simply majority in the Senate and, thus, wouldn’t need the votes of Democrats.
But by agreeing to the deal, Democrats would effectively be giving away much of their leverage to demand a larger overhaul of Trump’s immigration enforcement — which was, again, their reason for the shutdown in the first place.
The political idea with shutdowns is to create significant pain points — in this case, the chaos at the airports — that force the other side to eventually give in.
That hasn’t happened here. And that’s going to be frustrating for some Democrats — especially given many of the things they were pushing for have appeared to be quite popular.
Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont tried to argue Monday that his party has gotten wins out of this process, including the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month.
“The fact is, we’ve made significant progress. Noem is gone. That’s a big deal. She was reckless, lawless, corrupt. That’s big progress,” Welch said. “Number two, ICE is out of Minneapolis. We owe that, basically, to the brave citizens in Minneapolis who, in the face of enormous violence, stood up to protect their neighbors. And then you’re seeing out of the White House an acknowledgement that this mass roundup policy is way over the top.”
All of those might be bona fide wins for Democrats, but they weren’t leveraged from the shutdown fight. And they don’t necessarily preclude a repeat of the immigration crackdowns we saw in Minneapolis and Chicago.
Ahead of the latest dealmaking, there was evidence that Democrats still had leverage. A CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday showed Americans leaned more toward Democrats’ demands than Republicans’ position of holding out for the status quo.
It wasn’t a big gap — and the war with Iran made it difficult for Democrats to focus the public on the intricacies of the DHS funding debate — but it suggested they could have played this out. If the airport chaos fell at Republicans’ feet, it could have pushed them to make bigger concessions. Trump has in recent days sent ICE agents to help at airports, which some Democrats suggested could wind up helping their party by reminding Americans of their distaste for ICE.
At the same time, there are political reasons for Democrats to take this deal.
One is that it would mean they won’t have to vote to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement, which is a vote many of them would probably like to avoid.
But perhaps the more significant one is that it sets Republicans up for a potentially arduous reconciliation process.
There would seem to be a reason, after all, that Senate Majority Leader John Thune had previously dismissed the idea of pursuing one of these processes in an election year.
And this one will potentially be even thornier.
That’s because Trump has demanded in recent days that the “SAVE America Act” be part of any DHS funding deal. That legislation would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, among other provisions.
But reconciliation has certain budget-related restrictions for what can be included, and the Senate parliamentarian could very well rule that the voting changes don’t qualify. Will Trump just accept that? Or will he blow the whole thing up by keeping up his demands?
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a strong proponent of Trump’s voting bill, on Tuesday cautioned that it would be “essentially impossible” to pass it through reconciliation.
The reconciliation bill could also seemingly include the additional $200 billion that the White House is apparently going to seek for the war with Iran, which has proven a tough sell even for many GOP lawmakers.
Indeed, any of these issues could test the willingness of at least some Republicans to vote for the bill, and GOP lawmakers don’t have much room for error in either the Senate (53-47 Republican) or the House (217-214).
The most recent reconciliation bill last year also wound up being one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in modern history; Democrats are now greasing the skids for Republicans to try another one just a few months before the 2026 midterm elections — in what could be a drawn-out process.
Plus, letting Republicans fund Trump’s immigration crackdown without major changes could give Democrats an issue to hammer Republicans on in those midterms.
That seems to be the calculation that Democrats made when they gave up on the larger government shutdown last year — that they could make Republicans own the fact that they declined to extend popular enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Now, Democrats may think, they can make the GOP own Trump’s unpopular immigration crackdown, too.
It’s hardly a foolproof strategy. Who knows how relevant these issues will be in seven months?
But it’s the strategy Democrats could be choosing — again.
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