The stalemate over funding the president’s wall suggests that reaching any agreement on security arrangements at the border is more elusive than ever before.
WASHINGTON — Washington used to know how to have a serious debate about border security.
Republicans demanded more money for Border Patrol agents and necessary fences. Democrats argued for better surveillance technology and more resources at the ports of entry. The two parties squabbled over how much to spend, how to pay for it and how it all fit into the broader struggle to overhaul the nation’s broken immigration system.
But President Trump has demolished the decades-old, bipartisan understanding about how to bargain over the border. In Mr. Trump’s world, there are no alternatives that can form the basis of a legislative give-and-take, much as his allies and adversaries might hope for them. For the president, the only way to stop what he calls an “onslaught” of illegal immigrants is to erect a massive, concrete or steel barrier across the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
“Drones and all of the rest are wonderful and lots of fun, but it is only a good old fashioned Wall that works!” he tweeted last month.
By conjuring images of a towering stone edifice around a medieval fortress — and branding those on the outside as invaders threatening to bring crime, drugs and disease to the United States — Mr. Trump has transformed what used to be a complicated, nuanced negotiation into a take-it-or-leave-it demand, laced with xenophobia, that has shuttered nearly a quarter of the government for weeks.
“He turns a debate that is fundamentally about more or less, measured in dollars, and makes it a debate that is wall or not,” said Frank Sharry, a pro-immigration activist who has battled over border security for decades in the nation’s capital. “It’s become cartoonish.”
For decades, immigration has been an emotional and bitterly fought battle in Washington and around the country. But even so, there has been a consensus among most Republicans and Democrats that securing the southern border requires a mix of costly strategies. That included a large number of Border Patrol agents posted at key points along the vast stretch of land from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex., fences in urban areas and barriers to stop vehicles from crossing and high-tech surveillance gear to alert the Border Agents to the presence of migrants and drugs.
Until Mr. Trump was elected, the sticking points had largely been about other parts of the broader immigration debate — cracking down on people who stay longer than their visas allow; preventing companies from hiring illegal immigrants; expanding opportunities for legal immigration; and providing status to those already in the country illegally, including immigrants brought to the United States as children.
