Story highlights Lawmakers are racing toward a January 19 deadline for government funding

Democrats have been careful in their messaging, as have Republicans

Washington (CNN) Democrats are facing a tightrope challenge to achieve their goal of protecting young undocumented immigrants this month: Keep attention on the issue, but don't let it get singled out.

Already, both sides have begun messaging on the topic, with Republicans accusing Democrats of wanting to shut down the government over immigration and of being unreasonable, and Democrats maintaining they're fighting for a host of programs beneficial to Americans.

Lawmakers are racing toward a January 19 deadline for government funding with no plan for a long-term budget and a host of issues tied to the negotiations, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation and which President Donald Trump has decided to end.

The logic is that any long-term funding deal — which Republicans urgently want to fund the military and avoid mandatory sequestration budget cuts — will require Democrats, both in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to advance legislation, and in the House, where fiscal hawks generally reject overall budget numbers on principle. That gives Democrats virtually their only leverage all year in a Washington where Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House.

But while Democrats feel confident demanding that a suite of priorities be included in any budget deal and rejecting ones that fall short, the perception that a spending deal falls through — and thus the government shuts down — solely because of DACA could be too difficult for vulnerable red-state Democrats to swallow.

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