Congress votes to end three-day- long gov. shutdown

A three-day-long government shutdown came to an end on Monday after Congress adopted a short-term spending bill to fund government operations through February 8th.
The shutdown was the result of a divided senate that failed to pass a short-term spending bill last Friday. The bill would have added a six-year reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
According to CNBC, the lack of support from Democrats was due to the fact that they have “concerns about keeping the government funded with one short-term spending bill after another,” and because they “desire to enshrine soon-to-expire protections for people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.”
These protections were provided to illegal immigrants through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program introduced by former president Barack Obama in 2012.
The program, which the Trump administration has set to end in March of this year, gives temporary protection to undocumented migrants who arrived in the United States as children.
While some Senate Democrats supported the short term spending bill on Friday, some Republicans had also crossed party lines making it impossible to garner the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass the bill.
Following the Senate’s failed attempt at passing the spending bill last week, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his thoughts on the matter.
The president tweeted, “The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!”
Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) released a statement on Saturday, where he expressed his frustration over Democrats blocking the funding bill and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reauthorization.
“This is an embarrassment to Congress, democracy and the United States of America. If you shut down government, you’d better have a good reason for doing it. I defy any Democrat to explain why it was so important to ask our military to sacrifice their pay, furlough hundreds of thousands of workers and reject a long-term renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program,” said Sen. Kennedy. “They need to get their heads out of the sand and do what’s best for this country.”
However, on Monday, a short-term spending bill was adopted by a vote of 81 to 18 in the senate.
According to The Washington Post, Senate Marjority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he “will ignite another massive immigration debate, the fourth in the past 12 years, in coming weeks.”
Senator McConnell said, “Let me be clear. This immigration debate will have a level playing field at the outset, and an amendment process that is fair to all sides.”
The U.S. House and the Senate now must reach a decision on a spending bill two weeks from today, or the country could face another government shutdown.