Congress Averts a Government Shutdown at the 11th Hour, Kicks the DACA Can Down the Road

Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.

Congress passed a two-week government funding bill last night, effectively kicking the can down the road for a legislative solution to the DACA program.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in September that the administration would rescind DACA, and that it was up to Congress to come up with a permanent fix for the young undocumented people it covers. Democrats want to tie that fix to a government funding bill, but Republicans have resisted.

According to Politico, the issue was a topic of discussion during a White House meeting yesterday with President Trump and the top four party leaders in Congress—House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—but the group didn’t reach an agreement.

Earlier on in the day, Pelosi told reporters: “We will not leave here without a DACA fix,” a reference to members of Congress leaving for the holidays.

Some immigrants’ rights advocates see tying a DACA fix to a year-end spending bill as their final hope to save the program’s recipients from losing their jobs or being deported.

“We’re convinced that if we don’t enact the DREAM Act by the end of the year, it’s just not going to happen and that any spending package that emerges heading into the rest of the fiscal year will include funds that could be used to deport Dreamers,” Frank Sharry, executive director for the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, told reporters. “It’s a pretty stark view.”

WHAT ELSE?

• Two students were killed in a school shooting in the small town of Aztec, about three hours outside of Albuquerque, NM. The shooter was also killed; authorities have not yet publicly identified whether he was also a student.
• Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a man who would be in prison if not for a last-minute pardon by Donald Trump, is “seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate,” he told The Daily Beast.

WHAT’S NEXT?

• Trump’s holding a campaign rally tonight in Pensacola, FL, near the state’s border with Alabama, because a straight-up Roy Moore rally in that state would be a little too much, even for him.

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