Prospects for a bipartisan agreement to protect young immigrants from deportation and prevent a government shutdown later this week faded Sunday as key lawmakers traded accusations of bad faith and President Trump said hopes for a deal were “probably dead.” Negotiators spent last week seeking a solution that would shield young immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, including the roughly 800,000 who secured work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created under President Barack Obama.
But a tentative deal worked out Thursday by a small bipartisan group of senators crumbled in an Oval Office meeting in which, according to multiple people involved, an angry Trump asked them why the United States should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti, El Salvador and African nations over those from European countries such as Norway.
[Trump, condemned for ‘shithole’ countries remark, denies comment but acknowledges ‘tough’ language] A pair of GOP senators — Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia — who attended the meeting and previously said they could not recall the use of the vulgar phrase denied outright on Sunday that Trump had ever said it. That prompted Democrats to accuse them of impugning a fellow senator’s credibility, a development that could further poison the bipartisan talks.
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