US shutdown: Trump invites congressional leaders to border-security briefing

A closed sign is displayed at The National Archives entrance in Washington. Photo / AP

US President Donald Trump has invited congressional leaders to the White House for a briefing on border security, the first face-to-face session involving Republicans and Democrats as the partial government shutdown entered its second week.

The briefing will occur tomorrow - one day before Democrats take control of the House and Trump gets his first taste of divided government.

It was unclear whether the session would break the budget impasse - now in its 11th day - as Trump had demanded billions of dollars for a US-Mexico border wall and Democrats have rejected his request.

Trump had campaigned on a pledge to build the wall at Mexico's expense, a proposition Mexican officials called ludicrous.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security will brief the top two leaders in each party in the House and the Senate.

"Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Trump tweeted today.

In a televised White House session on December 11, Trump said he would take responsibility for a shutdown over the wall as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said they would not support wall funding.

Pelosi responded to Trump's "let's make a deal" invitation by tweeting that the President had "given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown - just the first sign of things to come in our new Democratic Majority committed to working #ForThePeople."

The shutdown began on December 22 and there has been no sign of direct negotiations involving Republicans, Democrats and the White House. Members of Congress left Washington while Trump remained at the White House and each side blamed the other.

Trump refers to the partial government closure as the "Schumer shutdown."

On Friday, House Democrats plan to use their new majority to vote through measures that would reopen nearly all of the shuttered federal agencies until the end of September, at funding levels Senate Republicans have previously agreed to. Those spending bills contain scores of priorities and pet projects for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The Democratic proposal holds out one exception: The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, would keep its current level of funding, with no new money for a border wall. The plan would also extend the department's budget only until February 8, allowing Democrats to revisit funding for key parts of Trump's immigration policy in a month.

The President has asked for US$5 billion in border money, far beyond the US$1.3 billion that Democrats plan to vote through this week. Trump, who tweeted his opposition to the plan today, has reiterated that he had no plans to back down.