House Republicans Aim to Pass Short-Term Spending Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown

Wall Street Journal

By Kristina Peterson

December 21, 2017

House Republicans Aim to Pass Short-Term Spending Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown

Top House Republicans moved to pass a stopgap spending bill Thursday needed to avoid a government shutdown, after GOP leaders scrapped a partisan proposal prioritizing military funding ahead of the weekend deadline.

House Republicans were optimistic Thursday they had enough votes to pass a short-term spending bill that would keep the government funded through Jan. 19, putting off contentious long-term funding fights until next year. Current government funding expires at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.

“We will get it done today,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) told reporters.

If the bill passes the House, the Senate could take it up as soon as later Thursday.

“The Senate stands ready to take up an agreement as soon as one originates in the House,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Some House Republicans had grumbled at the change in plans Wednesday, after GOP leaders dropped a proposal to fund the military through the full fiscal year, which ends in September. That plan stood no chance of passing the Senate, where Democrats, whose votes are needed to pass spending bills, demanded that military and domestic spending be extended for the same duration.

“There’s obvious disagreements by particularly people on the defense side,” Rep. Steve Womack (R., Ark.) said Wednesday evening, as House Republicans left a tense closed-door meeting on the spending-bill strategy. Still, Republicans said they expected to reach an agreement to avoid a partial shutdown that could steal the spotlight from passage of their tax overhaul this week.

“I don’t think that our conference, given the victory that we’ve just taken on tax, will risk a shutdown,” Mr. Womack said.

President Donald Trump weighed in Thursday morning, urging House Republicans to go along with the stopgap spending bill, or continuing resolution, known as a CR.

“House Democrats want a SHUTDOWN for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, Tax Cuts,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “House Republicans, don’t let this happen. Pass the C.R. TODAY and keep our Government OPEN!”

House Democrats aren’t expected to support the spending bill unless GOP leaders make late concessions to win their votes. But Republicans, who hold a 239-193 majority, were optimistic they could pass the bill on their own, according to GOP aides.

In the Senate, Democrats have signaled they are interested in keeping the government running. In particular, Senate Democratic leaders haven’t moved to use the spending bill as leverage on immigration.

Immigration activists and some rank-and-file Democrats in both chambers wanted to withhold support for the spending bill unless it contained protections for so-called Dreamers, young people living in the U.S. illegally who were brought here as children.

Mr. Trump in September ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, that protected them, but gave Congress six months to pass legislation before protections begin to expire.

To help maintain their leverage, Senate Democrats pushed to consider other big-ticket legislative items next month, when lawmakers expect to resolve the immigration fight and pass a longer-term spending bill.

“I don’t think you can resolve half of it now, half of it in January,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.) “ It just won’t happen.”

Congressional leaders are still negotiating a two-year budget deal to raise overall spending levels from limits established in 2011. Lawmakers have since then passed several multiyear deals avoiding those spending curbs and hope to reach another two-year deal in January.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Democrats objected to a separate $81 billion package of disaster aid for states and territories affected by this year’s destructive storms expected to get a vote in the House Thursday. Democrats argue the emergency aid doesn’t do enough for Puerto Rico, compared with its treatment of Texas and Florida, which have large House Republican delegations.

“Democrats want to make sure that we have equal bargaining, and we are not going to allow things like disaster relief go forward without discussing some of the other issues we care about,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.

The House spending bill would make available $2.85 billion to shore up states’ funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have indicated that they will be able to transfer enough money to states running low to get them through the end of January or early February, a House GOP aide said. Lawmakers hope to include a longer-term reauthorization of the program in the January spending bill.

The spending bill also contains a short-term extension of surveillance authorities under a law that authorizes an array of electronic spying through mid-January.

The long-term renewal of the law, called the FISA Amendments Act, has emerged as an unexpected flashpoint on Capitol Hill, where conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats have banded together to demand greater privacy protections for Americans caught up in surveillance of foreigners. The short-term extension gives Congress additional time to debate what kind of changes to make to the program.

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Congress votes to avert shutdown, sends Trump stopgap spending bill

Reuters

By Richard Cowan

December 21, 2017

Congress votes to avert shutdown, sends Trump stopgap spending bill

The U.S. Congress on Thursday averted a government shutdown just one day before federal funding was due to expire, sending President Donald Trump a bill to provide just enough money to keep agencies operating through Jan. 19.

With lawmakers eager to begin a holiday recess until Jan. 3, the House of Representatives and Senate scurried to pass the hastily written bill by votes of 231-188 and 66-32, respectively.

When Congress returns, lawmakers will immediately have to get back to work on appropriating more money for a fiscal year that already will be three months old. They will try to pass an “omnibus” spending bill to fund the government from Jan. 19 through Sept. 30.

Negotiators have been struggling for months over thorny issues such as the amount of defense-spending increases versus increases for other domestic programs, including medical research, opioid treatment and “anti-terrorism” activities.

Fiscal hawks, meanwhile, are angry that Congress is again moving to bust through spending caps that had been designed to tamp down mounting federal debt.

But some of those same lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Congress earlier in the week voted for a sweeping tax bill that will add $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years to a national debt that already stands at $20 trillion.

With the clock ticking toward a deadline of midnight on Friday when government funding would run out, Democrats in the House and Senate made a strong pitch for including protections for young immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, popularly known as “Dreamers.”

In the end, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and immigration advocacy groups failed. But nearly all of the House’s 193 Democrats and 29 of the Senate’s 46 Democrats voted no, in part to protest the lack of action on the immigration measure.

Shortly before the House and Senate votes, Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez told reporters, “We’re really tired of tomorrow,” referring to years of failed attempts in Congress to protect Dreamers from deportation, allow them to legally work in the United States and get on a path to citizenship.

They will resume their fight in January, aiming to win on the next spending bill or a separate measure.

Trump has eliminated Obama-era temporary protections for Dreamers, but has asked Congress to come up with a permanent solution by March. In the meantime, about 122 Dreamers a day are becoming vulnerable to deportation while Congress bickers.

Also on Thursday, the Senate put the brakes on another bill that passed the House, which would provide $81 billion in new disaster aid to help Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and several states hit by this year’s hurricanes or wildfires.

The temporary spending bill did, however, give Trump a modest increase of $4.7 billion for the Department of Defense to be used for missile defense and ship repair.

The bill includes $2.85 billion to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program through March and funding for community health centers and the Indian Health Service.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration

New York Times

By Caitlyn Dickerson and Ron Nixon

December 21, 2017

Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration

The Trump administration is considering a plan to separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, according to officials who have been briefed on the plans. The forceful move is meant to discourage border crossings, but immigrant groups have denounced it as draconian and inhumane.

Under current policy, families are kept intact while awaiting a decision on whether they will be deported; they are either held in special family detention centers or released with a court date. The policy under discussion would send parents to adult detention facilities, while their children would be placed in shelters designed for juveniles or with a “sponsor,” who could be a relative in the United States, though the administration may also tighten rules on sponsors.

The policy is favored by the White House, and has been approved by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to three officials at the Department of Homeland Security and one at the White House who have all been briefed on the proposal but declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The officials said that the new Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, who has final approval power, has yet to sign off on the proposal.

The debate comes as the administration faces an influx of people crossing the southern United States border illegally. As soon as President Trump took office, the number of people caught crossing the border dropped sharply, a sign that far fewer people were even trying. Only 11,677 apprehensions were recorded in April, the lowest number in a least 17 years, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Administration officials heralded the drop as a “Trump effect,” with his tough talk on illegal immigration and a surge in immigration arrests discouraging Mexicans and Central Americans from making the journey.

But the number of people caught has been on the rise, reaching 29,086 in November, the most since January, a trend that has worried some administration officials and is weighing on the decision to separate parents from children. That month, 7,000 “family units” were apprehended, as well as 4,000 “unaccompanied minors,” or children traveling without an adult relative.

This fall, the White House convened a group of officials from two of its own offices — the National Security Council and the Domestic Policy Council — as well as from Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the State Department, to look into ways to curtail border crossings, particularly those of children. The family separation policy, which was reported on Thursday by The Washington Post, is among the solutions being considered.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent at the border in San Diego. Despite an increase in ICE arrests, migrants have recently begun trying to cross the border in greater numbers. Credit David Maung/Bloomberg

The vexing question of how to stem the flow of migrants into the country has frustrated the White House, under both Democratic and Republican control, for years. Former President Barack Obama tried to do it by fast-tracking some deportations and by starting a media campaign in Central America to warn people about the dangers of the journey to the United States. But both of those measures were largely unsuccessful, and crossings reached unprecedented levels during the Obama presidency.

Previous administrations have stopped short of resorting to policies like family separation, because of concerns that it could force people into the hands of dangerous smugglers who sell themselves as a way to evade the Border Patrol, or force people with legitimate claims for asylum to remain in life-threatening situations in their home countries.

Most Mexicans and Central Americans trying to enter the United States are considered economic migrants and are thus denied asylum, which requires evidence of persecution. But asylum cases often take years to litigate, and the Trump administration has made a point of discouraging people from even trying to come. When he was Homeland Security secretary, John Kelly, now the president’s chief of staff, often talked about the dangers of the trip.

Tyler Q. Houlton, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, would not comment on the statuses of the policies being considered, but said that migrating illegally with children was itself cruel. “The dangerous illegal journey north is no place for young children and we need to explore all possible measures to protect them,” he said.

Rape and kidnappings for ransom are common en route to the United States, and a report from the United Nations International Organization of Migration documented 232 cases from January through July of people who died trying to cross rugged terrain or rivers, or in unsafe conditions inside trains or buses, even before they got to the border.

Still, the prospect of breaking a sacred bond between parent and child has not been an easy decision. Mr. Kelly said early this year that he was considering the move, but after an uproar from immigrant advocates and some members of Congress, he said that families would be separated only in extreme circumstances, such as when the child was in danger because of the parent. According to one of the Homeland Security officials briefed on the proposal, even some people in the department who support strict enforcement of immigration laws see family separation as going too far.

But even without a formal change in policy, immigrant advocates say that families are already being separated on occasion. The Women’s Refugee Commission and other organizations filed a complaint this month that said it had documented more than 150 cases in 2017.

“It interferes with due process, and is really just cruel,” said Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the organization. “Children feel that they are being abandoned, literally being ripped out of their parents’ arms.”

José Fuentes with his sons Andrée, left, and Mateo. After Mr. Fuentes and Mateo were detained at the border, they were separated and moved to facilities more than 1,000 miles apart. Credit Olivia Acevedo

One of those parents, José Fuentes, presented himself to immigration officers at the border, along with his 1-year-old son Mateo, to claim asylum in November. The family had fled El Salvador with a caravan of asylum seekers because of gang violence, said Mr. Fuentes’s wife, Olivia Acevedo.

After four days of being held in custody together, Mr. Fuentes was transferred to a detention facility more than 1,000 miles away, in San Diego, Calif., while their son was held in a facility for children in Laredo, Tex.

For six days afterward, Ms. Acevedo said, she, her husband and their lawyers could not confirm where Mateo was. They were terrified. “Can you imagine?” she said in Spanish in a telephone interview from Mexico, where she remains with the couple’s other son, Andrée, who is 4. “It’s inhuman to take a baby from its parents.”

Liz Johnson, a spokeswoman for ICE, said that the two were separated “out of concern for the child’s safety and security” because Mr. Fuentes did not have sufficient documentation to prove that he was, in fact, Mateo’s father. “ICE has requested assistance from the El Salvadoran consulate to determine the family relationship,” she said.

Ms. Acevedo said she saw Mateo for the first time since their separation last week, through a five-minute video call arranged by the facility where he is being held. Mateo cried the whole time, she said, adding, “It’s a form of torture.”

She said that if her husband had known that he would be separated from their son, they would not have tried to cross the border.

That reaction is precisely what the creators of the policy are hoping for, according to the officials, who also said the administration was considering new policies on unaccompanied minors.

The government already has begun to use anti-smuggling laws to prosecute parents or other relatives of the children if they themselves are in the United States illegally. A new policy under consideration would beef up background checks of adults who show up to claim the children after they are apprehended.

Another proposal involves random spot checks of the homes where the children are taken, which would most likely result in even more immigration arrests, as those homes often contain other undocumented immigrants.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Exclusive: Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist and 'undocumented citizen,' lands book deal

Los Angeles Times

December 21, 2017

Exclusive: Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist and 'undocumented citizen,' lands book deal

Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and activist who in 2011 revealed that he unknowingly entered the U.S. with false documents as a child, will publish his debut memoir with HarperCollins imprint Dey Street Books.

Vargas’ book will be titled “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.”

Vargas, a member of the team that earned a Pulitzer for reporting on the Virginia Tech shooting for the Washington Post in 2008, was born in the Philippines, where he lived until he was 12. In 1993, he moved to the United States to live with his American grandparents, initially unaware that he was living in the country illegally.

He disclosed his immigration status in 2011, writing in an essay for the New York Times Magazine, “I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. … It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful.”

Vargas is the founder of Define American, a nonprofit immigration advocacy group that supported the so-called Dream Act, a bill that would grant permanent residency to some immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The bill was first proposed in 2001, but has never become law.

In 2012, President Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which aimed to protect the young immigrants who might have been covered under the Dream Act. President Trump’s administration rescinded the policy in September.

In 2014, Vargas was recognized with PEN Center USA’s Freedom to Write award.

Vargas has directed two documentaries: “Documented,” about his own story as an undocumented immigrant, and “White People,” a 2015 film about the impact of white privilege.

“After finding out I didn’t have the right legal documents to be in this country, I’ve always wanted to write my way into America,” he said. But Dey Street executive editor Julia Cheiffetz “has been encouraging me to write a book for years, and I’m excited and terrified to finally put my full story on the page.”

Cheiffetz, who negotiated the book deal, said that “there is a gaping hole” when it comes to memoirs about immigration in the United States.

“Jose speaks to the experience of being an undocumented immigrant with an activist’s strength, and a poet’s heart,” she said. “His story is almost impossible to believe, yet it is the story of 11 million people in this country.”

The publication date for “Dear America” has not yet been announced.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Sen. Dianne Feinstein says she will not back must-pass spending bill without fixes for 'Dreamers' and children's healthcare

Los Angeles Times

By Sarah D. Wire

December 21, 2017

Sen. Dianne Feinstein says she will not back must-pass spending bill without fixes for 'Dreamers' and children's healthcare

In a surprising reversal, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced Thursday that she will not vote for an end-of-year spending bill that does not include protections for people brought to the country illegally as children as well as funding for a children’s health insurance program.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable that Republicans are leaving these items out of their bill to fund the government,” she said in a statement Thursday.

Earlier this week, the Democrat said she would vote for the bill, which must be passed in order to keep the government open past Friday.

Feinstein’s reversal is largely symbolic because the Senate likely still has enough Democratic votes to pass a temporary spending bill and push off a deal for so-called Dreamers until the new year.

Feinstein had been facing pressure from advocates and one of her 2018 opponents for refusing to block the bill if it didn’t include protections for Dreamers, who had benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Trump ended in September. About a quarter of the nearly 800,000 so-called Dreamers live in California, and almost 2 million California children and pregnant women use the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which the state government says is expected to run out of money next month.

“I’ve talked with them, I’ve met with them, I understand their plight and it breaks my heart. In California, 200,000 DACA youth are living in fear. The government knows where they live, where they study and where they work, and unless Congress acts, they know the government can show up at any moment and deport them,” Feinstein said.

Protesters had flooded Feinstein’s California and Washington offices in recent days.

Some on the left in California have questioned whether Feinstein is too moderate for a state that feels it’s under attack by the new administration. Her most prominent 2018 opponent, Democratic state Senate leader Kevin de León, has tried to capitalize on her reluctance to block the spending bill.

An Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley poll released Thursday found Feinstein leading De León 41% to 27% among likely voters, with 32% of respondents saying they were undecided or would support another candidate. House Democrats who have pushed to block the spending bill in order to get a deal for Dreamers by the end of the year praised Feinstein.

Rep. Nanette Barragán of San Pedro, whose cousin is among the Dreamers anxiously waiting a resolution, said she spoke twice with Feinstein on Thursday morning.

“It was a really good conversation, and to see her take a stand and say “I’m with you guys’… is great to see,” Barragán said.

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chairwoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) said she’s glad Feinstein took a stand.

“It sends a powerful message, and it shows that we can be even more unified on holding the line on Dreamers and the [spending bill],” she said.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Congress prepares to vote on $81 billion in disaster aid, stopgap plan to prevent federal shutdown

Los Angeles Times

By Lisa Mascaro

December 21, 2017

Congress prepares to vote on $81 billion in disaster aid, stopgap plan to prevent federal shutdown

Congress is set to approve the largest disaster aid package in U.S. history — $81 billion to help California and the Gulf states recover from wildfires and hurricanes — as well as a stopgap funding measure to prevent a government shutdown Friday, as lawmakers scrambled to wrap up business before a Christmas break.

The stopgap measure would continue federal operations for a few more weeks, setting up another deadline for Jan. 19. It would leave undone a long list of priorities that members of both parties had hoped to finish this year.

The spending bill, which is expected to pass the House on Thursday afternoon and the Senate later, would fund three more months of the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program, which provides insurance for nearly 9 million children nationwide. Congress has been deadlocked on a longer-term renewal of the popular program, and several states are on the verge of running out of money to keep it open.

The bill would also extend for a few weeks the National Security Agency’s legal authority for domestic surveillance of emails, which is set to expire at the end of the month. The debate over major reforms in the program would be punted, along with many other issues, into the new year.

Among the unresolved issues is protection for the young immigrants called Dreamers, who face the threat of deportation starting in March because of President Trump’s decision to end the Obama-era DACA program, which allowed them to stay and work in the U.S.

Gaining a permanent legislative fix for the Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children, was a top priority for Democrats, some of whom had promised to oppose any year-end spending bill that did not include it.

More than 1,000 Dreamers and advocates continued protests and lawmaker visits Thursday at the Capitol. In the end, though, moderate Democrats said they would not risk a government shutdown at this point over the issue. Party leaders promised to fight out the issue in January.

“There’s a lot of justifiable anger and disappointment that [the] Dream Act didn’t pass before the holidays, but we remain optimistic that we’re going to get it done,” said Frank Sharry, executive director at America’s Voice, an immigrant-advocacy organization.

Passage of both the year-end spending bill and the disaster aid package has been uncertain all week as the Republican majority, particularly in the House, fought over priorities. Defense hawks pushed unsuccessfully for a big boost in military spending. Conservatives opposed the disaster package unless it included offsetting cuts to other programs.

In the end, though, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) appealed to GOP lawmakers to capitalize on the unified front they had shown in passing the tax-cut bill this week, hoping to end the year on a political high note.

“Let’s stand together, be a team,” Ryan urged lawmakers in a private meeting in the Capitol basement, according to a person present in the room who was not authorized to speak on the record. Ryan reminded bickering lawmakers that their divisions only served up opportunities for Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, to leverage their votes for their own priorities.

Trump echoed that message in a morning tweet: “House Democrats want a SHUTDOWN for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, Tax Cuts. House Republicans, don’t let this happen. Pass the C.R. TODAY and keep our Government OPEN!”

The huge disaster-aid package signals what experts have warned will be greater expenses for covering natural calamities as the climate changes.

It includes $4.4 billion California sought for wildfires earlier this season, but does not include recovery money for the devastating Thomas fire, among the biggest ever recorded. Congressional leaders expect to consider more money for the costs of that fire in 2018.

The spending measure will keep most government operations running at existing levels, with some slight boosts for the military – including construction of a missile field in Alaska which is intended to boost defenses against the threat of an attack by North Korea — but not the big increase sought by defense hawks.

CHIP will receive $2.8 billion to continue funding through March, but not the broader authorization governors and advocates have been seeking.

Republicans made good on a promise to shield Medicare and other programs for steep cuts that could result if the just-passed GOP tax plan adds to deficits, which it is expected to do. The measure would waive so-called pay-as-you-go spending rules, which are supposed to trigger automatic cuts when Congress passes a measure, like the tax bill, that will increase the federal deficit.

Congress has often waived that rule in the past, and another waiver was one of the conditions Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) won in exchange for her vote in favor of the tax bill. Collins relented, for now, on other demands to stabilize the Affordable Care Act, which GOP leaders promised her they would address next year.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Congress votes to avert government shutdown, but Senate fails to pass disaster aid package

Los Angeles Times

By Lisa Mascaro

December 21, 2017

Congress votes to avert government shutdown, but Senate fails to pass disaster aid package

Congress approved a temporary spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, but failed to complete work on an $81-billion disaster aid package to help California, Gulf Coast states and Puerto Rico recover from wildfires and hurricanes, as lawmakers scrambled Thursday to wrap up business before a Christmas break.

The stopgap measure continues federal operations for a few more weeks, setting up another deadline for Jan. 19. But it left undone a long list of priorities that members of both parties had hoped to finish this year.

The House approved the spending bill, 231 to 188, with 14 Democrats joining a majority of the chamber’s Republicans. The Senate quickly followed, voting 66 to 32 to avert a federal shutdown Friday, with 30 Democrats opposed, including both California senators, largely because the bill failed to resolve the fate of the young immigrants known as Dreamers. ​​​

The disaster aid package, the largest in U.S. history, ran into trouble. It passed the House, 251 to 169, on a bipartisan vote, but was blocked in the Senate, where it required 60 votes, under pressure from two directions.

Conservative groups opposed the disaster measure for increasing spending too much, and Democrats said it was insufficient, especially for hard-hit Puerto Rico. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky decided not to bring the measure up for a vote.

Lawmakers plan to try again in the new year.

The stop-gap spending bill would fund three more months of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which provides insurance for nearly 9 million children nationwide. Congress has been deadlocked on a longer-term renewal of the popular program, and several states are on the verge of running out of money to keep it going.

The bill would also extend for a few weeks the National Security Agency’s legal authority for domestic surveillance of emails, which is set to expire at the end of the month. The debate over major reforms in the program would be punted, along with many other issues, into the new year.

Among the unresolved issues is protection for the Dreamers, who face the threat of deportation starting in March because of President Trump’s decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which allowed them to stay and work in the U.S.

Gaining a permanent legislative fix for the Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children, was a top priority for Democrats, some of whom had promised to oppose any year-end spending bill that did not include it.

More than 1,000 Dreamers and advocates continued protests and lawmaker visits Thursday at the Capitol. In the end, moderate Democrats said they would not risk a government shutdown at this point over the issue. Party leaders promised to fight out the issue in January.

“There’s a lot of justifiable anger and disappointment that the Dream Act didn’t pass before the holidays, but we remain optimistic that we’re going to get it done,” said Frank Sharry, executive director at America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy organization.

Passage of both the year-end spending bill and the disaster aid package has been uncertain all week as the Republican majority, particularly in the House, fought over priorities. Defense hawks pushed unsuccessfully for a big boost in military spending. Conservatives opposed the disaster package unless it included offsetting cuts to other programs.

In the House, Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) appealed to GOP lawmakers to capitalize on the unified front they had shown in passing the tax cut bill this week, hoping to end the year on a political high note.

“Let’s stand together, be a team,” Ryan urged lawmakers in a private meeting in the Capitol basement, according to a person present in the room who was not authorized to speak on the record. Ryan reminded bickering lawmakers that their divisions only served up opportunities for Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, to leverage their votes for their own priorities.

Trump echoed that message in a morning tweet urging passage of what’s called a continuing resolution: “House Democrats want a SHUTDOWN for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, Tax Cuts. House Republicans, don’t let this happen. Pass the C.R. TODAY and keep our Government OPEN!”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) implored colleagues to support the disaster aid measure.

“Here and now, right before Christmas, don’t vote against aid,” he said. “What we do here and now, it has consequences.”

The huge disaster aid package signals what experts have warned will be greater expenses for covering natural calamities as the climate changes.

It included $4.4 billion California sought for wildfires earlier this season, but does not include recovery money for the devastating Thomas fire, among the biggest ever recorded. Congressional leaders expect to consider more money for the costs of that fire in 2018.

Even so, conservative groups warned lawmakers to vote against it.

“Congress is trying to ram through a huge spending bill with little warning, claiming that offsets are not needed because it’s an ‘emergency,’ ” said the conservative Club for Growth. “This profligate spending needs to stop.”

The spending measure will keep most government operations running at existing levels, with some slight boosts for the military — including construction of a missile field in Alaska that is intended to boost defenses against the threat of an attack by North Korea — but not the big increase sought by defense hawks.

CHIP will receive $2.8 billion to continue funding through March, but not the broader authorization governors and advocates have been seeking.

Republicans made good on a promise to shield Medicare and other programs from steep cuts that could result if the just-passed GOP tax plan adds to deficits, which it is expected to do. The stop-gap spending measure would waive so-called pay-as-you-go spending rules, which threatened to cause automatic cuts.

Congress has often waived that rule in the past, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected to waiving it again.

“Do federal deficits matter?” he asked.

Paul’s effort to block the waiver, though, was rejected, with only seven other senators, all conservative Republicans, voting with him to allow the automatic cuts.

The waiver was one of the conditions Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) won in exchange for her vote in favor of the tax bill. Collins relented, for now, on other demands to stabilize the Affordable Care Act, which GOP leaders promised her they would address next year.

For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com