WASHINGTON—Congress members on both sides of the aisle expressed a willingness to compromise during their first border security conference committee meeting on Jan. 30, while still airing their views on the necessity, or lack thereof, of building a barrier on the border with Mexico.
The group of seven senators and 10 representatives, a blend of appropriations committees from both chambers of Congress, was set up to find a compromise on funding for the Department of Homeland Security after a 35-day partial government shut down resulting from an impasse between Congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump on his request for $5.7 billion for a border wall.
The committee has till Feb. 15 to reach a solution on legislation that both chambers will pass and the president will sign. If they don't, Trump has said he may unlock funding for the border wall by calling a national emergency or the federal government will go into a partial shutdown again.
Both sides called for funding decisions to be made based on evidence and the expertise of those in the field but it's not clear what form that will take. Several Republican members of the conference committee called for testimony from those on the front line, or even a trip to the border, but chairwoman Lowey gave no indication during the meeting that she had planned either.
"We'll be talking to as many experts as we deem necessary," Lowey said during a post-meeting press conference. "We are talking about maybe taking a trip to the border, but there is not much time."
Many of the members on the committee also serve on the Homeland Security subcommittee of their appropriations committees, and she named a few of her Democratic colleagues who had attended "many, many briefings from the experts."
"We've been working on this for the past year ... it's not as if we're just discussing this issue," she said.
In a last-ditch effort to get Democrats to come to the negotiating table during the shutdown, Trump proposed allowing some DACA recipients and those with temporary protected status (TPS) to stay in the country for another three years.
Democrats have long clamored for a pathway for DACA and for those with TPS to be able to stay in the country legally but they didn't take Trump up on his offer. Trump eventually agreed to temporarily fund the government for another three weeks while lawmakers work on a compromise for border security.
Trump's last offer put the question on the table of what exactly the conference committee would be negotiating.
"It's just a matter of border security at this moment," Lowey said, squashing speculation that the conference committee might be taking up immigration issues as well.
She declined to say whether she would flat out reject funding for a wall, but Democrats hinted that there was currently no money for one coming from their side of the aisle.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) outlined a proposal that she said was the "basis" for the House Democrats position. That proposal did not include funding for a border barrier, she said.
Hours before the conference committee was set to meet, Trump weighed in on Twitter, telling committee members that if they were "not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!"