So far, President Donald Trump has held firm in his demand for more border wall money, with his administration forecasting an extended government shutdown over the impasse. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images white house Trump accuses Democrats of border wall hypocrisy

Amid a government shutdown centered on President Donald Trump’s demands for border wall funding, the president again slammed Democrats on Monday for refusing to give him the funding levels he wants.

“Virtually every Democrat we are dealing with today strongly supported a Border Wall or Fence,” Trump tweeted. “It was only when I made it an important part of my campaign, because people and drugs were pouring into our Country unchecked, that they turned against it. Desperately needed!”


The comments echo a talking point that congressional Republicans have circulated in recent days — noting that a failed 2013 immigration plan, which garnered Senate Democratic support, would have devoted $46 billion to border security.

That is much more than the $5 billion Trump has demanded in border wall funding, a point that largely prompted the current shutdown.

But the $46 billion tells only part of the story. Just $8 billion would have gone toward border fencing — which Democrats are at pains to note is different than a wall. A “30-foot concrete wall, 30-foot steel spikes, that's not the smart way, and that's what all the experts on the border tell us,“ said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Sunday’s “This Week“ on ABC in discussing the distinction.

Also, the $46 billion was part of a broader immigration package that included a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. House Republicans quashed that legislation, declining to take it up.

Trump has continued to hammer immigration restrictions, his signature issue.

He tweeted late Sunday night, “The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime is at our Southern Border. We need Border Security, and as EVERYONE knows, you can’t have Border Security without a Wall. The Drones & Technology are just bells and whistles. Safety for America!”

But his insistence that illegal immigration has surged to crisis levels misrepresents the facts on the ground. Border Patrol arrests in fiscal 2018 were less than half the numbers during the Clinton administration, and the most recent data are fairly consistent with arrests during the Obama administration.

Trump has held firm in his demand for more border wall money, with his administration forecasting an extended government shutdown over the impasse.

The Republican-led House passed a stopgap spending bill last week that would have allocated Trump’s $5 billion — but it went nowhere fast in the Senate, which had already passed legislation that did not include that funding. Negotiations to end the shutdown have slowed to a crawl, with some observers expecting it to last until Democrats assume power in the House in the new year.