Congress brought an end to the three-day government shutdown on Monday, January 21st as Democrats of the Senate scrambled to fund a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without addressing the fate of the young undocumented immigrants, or the “dreamers”. The House quickly approved the measure which will fund the government through February 8th and extended government funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program for another 6 years. President Trump signed it into effect on Monday.

The reason the government was shutdown is because Congress could not decide on a spending bill. A spending bill had to be passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump by midnight on Friday, January 19th. didn’t happen. Republicans tried to pass a temporary spending bill before the deadline but it didn’t pass and only had a 50-49 vote, with almost no Democrats and even some republicans voting against the bill. This bill included short term and long term defense plans, border security funding including money going towards Trump’s wall and immigration reform, and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program). There were some key points that the bill lacked which failed to appeal to Democrats, such as the lack of funding towards DACA or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This is an American immigration policy that allowed some individuals who had entered the country as a minor, and had either entered or remained in the country illegally, to receive a two year period of deferred action from deportation and be eligible to find work. Without the democratic vote, there was no way the bill was going to pass with a 60 vote majority so the government shut down until a spending bill could be decided on.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell included a pledge to allow an immigration vote within the next couple of weeks. This bill wasn’t a total loss to Republicans as they also snuck into the bill a 30 million dollar tax cut, and got democrats to cave with a flimsy promise from the Senate majority leader who is known for not following up on his word. It seems as though the situation dealing with the undocumented immigrants is in a worse state than before, as the DACA program is set to end March 5th with no solution in sight which could end with people beginning to be deported. Freshman Danielle Joseph said, “People who had come to America as children should not have to leave to a country that they can’t call home.”. Many people seem to share an opinion with Joseph, as many immigration activists are looking at Democrats with disappointment as they hesitated when the people needed them the most.