As Trump threatens shutdown, Sen. Ted Cruz pitches $25B border wall funding bill

People look on from the Mexican side, left, as U.S. Border Patrol agents on the other side of the U.S. border wall in San Diego prepare for the arrival of hundreds of pro-migration protesters, seen from Tijuana, Mexico, Monday, Dec. 10, 2018. >>See how the border wall has looked over the years in the photos that follow... less People look on from the Mexican side, left, as U.S. Border Patrol agents on the other side of the U.S. border wall in San Diego prepare for the arrival of hundreds of pro-migration protesters, seen from ... more Photo: Rebecca Blackwell, STF / Associated Press Photo: Rebecca Blackwell, STF / Associated Press Image 1 of / 47 Caption Close As Trump threatens shutdown, Sen. Ted Cruz pitches $25B border wall funding bill 1 / 47 Back to Gallery

WASHINGTON - While President Donald Trump and top Hill Democrats hurtle toward a potential holiday shutdown over his long-promised border wall, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is backing a longshot plan to cover the $25 billion cost by tightening rules so as to deny food stamps, tax credits and other federal benefits to people living in the country illegally.

The proposal, a fixture of conservative immigration policy, comes amid a standoff over Trump’s bid to win more wall funding from Congress before a Dec. 21 deadline for averting a government shutdown.

Cruz and his allies say that further restricting welfare and tax benefits - most are already barred for undocumented immigrants — would solve the White House funding dilemma. Democrats argue it would shift the costs of an unneeded wall onto children, many of them living legally or born in America.

The proposal has faint hopes of resolving the wall standoff in a sharply divided Congress, but it stands as a symbolic marker of how deep the split remains on the intractable problems of immigration and border security.

Trump clashed Tuesday with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi in an unusual on-camera encounter at the White House. The two sides remained far apart, with Trump telling the Democratic leaders he would be “proud to shut down the government over border security."

So far, the Democrats’ offer has been the $1.6 billion bipartisan agreement reached earlier this year, far short of the $5 billion Trump wants for wall construction and border security in 2019. They also have offered to continue the current $1.3 billion in wall funding for the next year.

“We gave the President two options that would keep the government open,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a statement. “It’s his choice to accept one of those options or shut the government down.”

With no agreement in sight, Trump also suggested in a series of tweets Tuesday that he might be willing to declare victory with the current collage of “newly built Walls, makeshift Walls & Fences, or Border Patrol Officers & Military.”

Republicans, who are losing their House majority at the end of this year, have sought to include more wall funding in a last-ditch spending package, though they have not identified a funding source.

Although most of the government is funded into 2019, there are half-dozen departments and agencies hanging in the balance, including NASA and the Department of Homeland Security, which covers money for the border wall.

Cruz, in a conference call with supporters Monday night, expressed deep reservations about the GOP’s end-game, saying they missed a chance to secure wall money with a filibuster-proof budget measure that could pass without any Democratic votes.

“Our leadership chose not to go down that road, and I think that was a serious missed opportunity" said Cruz, who has become one of the leading Senate backers of a border wall, which Trump originally promised would be paid for by Mexico.

Cruz added that he sees little chance that the Democrat-controlled House will pony up money for the wall, which critics see as wasteful and unnecessary. "In the next two years, I don’t anticipate a Nancy Pelosi Democratic House passing positive border security legislation," Cruz said.

Cruz also expressed frustration with the current negotiations, saying rank-and-file lawmakers have been left out of the process. “The way this operates, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer are negotiating this behind closed doors,” Cruz said, “they don’t tell the rest of us what’s happening."

But with time running out on a year-end deal, Congress watchers see little chance of passing the Cruz-backed legislation targeting federal benefits and tax credits. The bill involves highly-controversial changes to the tax code and steep political obstacles.

Targeting tax credits

The bill - introduced last week with Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and John Kennedy of Louisiana - is not Cruz’s first attempt to scrounge up wall money. Last May, he filed a bill to use funds forfeited by alleged Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as “El Chapo.” That bill went nowhere.

Cruz and his allies say their “WALL Act” would more than cover the project’s proposed $25 billion price tag by closing “loopholes” that they say provide welfare and tax benefits to people living in the country illegally.

The proposal comes on top of a Trump administration plan to restrict immigration benefits and citizenship opportunities to non-citizens who have received public benefits or government assistance.

As a general rule, undocumented immigrants, including “Dreamers” in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, are not eligible to receive government benefits such as food stamps, cash welfare payments, health care subsidies, and non-emergency medical care.

Conservatives, however, have long argued that some illegal immigrants can claim certain types of earned income and child tax credits, either with invalid Social Security numbers or by using the Social Security numbers of their American-born children. The new proposal would require parents claiming tax benefits to have their own work-eligible Social Security numbers.

The measure would also enhance verification procedures for people claiming citizenship to receive food stamps, welfare, housing, and other government benefits. Together with increased fines on illegal border crossers and new penalties for visa overstays, the bill’s backers say it could save $33 billion over ten years.

“If you want to receive food stamps and other benefits, then you should prove your citizenship,” Kennedy said in a statement.

While the bill targets tax credits and food assistance claimed by the low-income, undocumented workers, Houston Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee said those ultimately affected would be their minor children. “Philosophically, it’s a stretch,” she said, “and that’s a mild word.”

Democrats and immigrant rights activists argue that funding a border wall is a poor trade for targeting children who can’t be held responsible for their predicament, including some of the estimated 126,000 Dreamers in Texas.

“Throwing $25 billion to fund a border wall that most Texans don’t want is a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars,” said San Antonio Democrat Joaquin Castro, the incoming chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Cutting off health care and food assistance for kids and families to pay for a border wall across Texas makes even less sense.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro steps into key role on immigration policy

Some critics also have questioned the timing of the bill, noting that its tax, health and Social Security provisions are too far-reaching and complex to iron out in the remaining two weeks of the current lame duck Congress. The new Democratic-led House is even less likely to go along in the coming year.

“This is not a serious policy proposal,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group. “This proposal summarizes the Republican approach to immigration policy. You think up every desperate idea that you can, and hope the American public isn’t paying attention.”

Jackson Lee, a ranking member of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, called the plan “unworkable,” in part because many social safety net programs such as food stamps and Medicaid are administered jointly with the states.

Jeremy Wallace contributed to this report.