A weekend offer that President Donald Trump says is a compromise with Democrats doesn’t appear to be on track to ending the partial government shutdown, now in Day 31.
On Saturday, the president announced a three-year extension for DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as he looks to secure $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall.
“(The plan is) straightforward, fair, reasonable and common sense with lots of compromise,” President Trump said. “Our proposal is not intended to solve all our immigration challenges. This plan solves the immediate crisis.”
Congressman Salud Carbajal, who represents the Central Coast, sees it differently.
“(President Trump) continues to try to sell to the American people this ineffective wall and he’s trying to sell a fabricated crisis that doesn’t exist,” Rep. Carbajal said. “What does exist is a humanitarian crisis that this president has helped create through his policies.”
Carbajal says he’s willing to negotiate with the president but wants the shutdown to end first.
While lawmakers continue to go back and forth, people like Allan Hancock College student Francisca Camarillo feel caught in the middle.
Camarillo is one of nearly 700,000 DACA recipients in the U.S.
“I’m really upset that he’s playing around with the lives of people just because,” she said. “He hasn’t done that only to DACA recipients but also the 800,000 federal workers that are right now without pay, which is absolutely unacceptable. Someday I’ll be a math teacher and I’ll be teaching other students. It’s not like we’re doing anything negative. I feel like we’re a positive impact. So I feel like if we can stay, that would be even better. We’re trying to contribute to the country, not take away.”
For now, Camarillo says her education will continue despite the shutdown. She hopes to transfer to Cal Poly to get her bachelor’s degree soon.
Meanwhile, Democrats haven’t changed their initial reaction to the president’s offer, which was outright rejection.
