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Top Texas Democrat rules out funding Trump's border wall as key panel starts work to break impasse

The group's task is straightforward: Reach a deal on Homeland Security Department funding before Feb. 15.

Updated at 4:20 p.m.: Revised to include additional information about the conference committee's first meeting.

WASHINGTON — The only Texas Democrat appointed to the committee that's been charged with wrangling a border security deal — or else, risking yet another federal government shutdown — said he was coming into the high-stakes negotiations "with an open mind."

Except on one rather significant point.

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Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo said on Wednesday that he does not support providing President Donald Trump any money for a wall, fence or other barrier along the border, shutting the door on the very issue that Trump and many other Republicans have declared to be make-or-break.

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"A wall is the 14th century solution to the 21st century issues that we have on the border," Cuellar said in an interview on CNN, underscoring many Democrats' criticism of Trump's wall as outmoded and ineffective.

That was the major battle line as the high-profile panel met on Wednesday for the first time.

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Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he will not support President Donald Trump's border wall...
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he will not support President Donald Trump's border wall as a high-profile committee gets to work on a border security funding deal.(Todd J. Gillman / Dallas Morning News)

Cuellar is one of 17 members on the bipartisan, bicameral committee, whose only other Texan is Fort Worth Rep. Kay Granger, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. Work began with a public meeting, though negotiations will largely be conducted in private.

The group's task is straightforward: Reach a deal on Homeland Security Department funding before Feb. 15.

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The particulars are much more complicated. The president remains resolute in his demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, even after the request gridlocked Washington into the longest-ever government shutdown in American history.

Trump has gone as far to threaten declaring a national emergency, thus bypassing Congress, to build his border wall if lawmakers can't deliver.

"If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!" the president wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, expressed optimism that Republican and Democratic...
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, expressed optimism that Republican and Democratic negotiators could reach a deal on border security funding. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

But the conference committee was crafted to make a deal, with both parties eager to avoid another shutdown that left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without a paycheck.

The panel features powerful appropriators like Cuellar and Granger, who are used to working with lawmakers on the other side of aisle. It is also notable in excluding some of the more strident voices — on both sides — in the immigration debate.

"We all have a different positions on how we settle this," Cuellar told CNN. "But then again, we're negotiators. ... If we don't have an outside influence, let's say President Trump, we can sit down and work out a compromise."

Granger likewise said she was hopeful the panel could agree on "the things experts on the border have said they need in order to secure our homeland and address the crisis we face."

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"Democrats said they would not negotiate on border security until the government was reopened," she said at the opening meeting, which allowed each committee member to give an opening statement. "The government is now open, and the negotiations start now."

Whether the panel tries to go big or small remains to be seen.

Some have suggested that one way to break the funding impasse is to pursue the kind of broad immigration accord that has eluded Congress for years, covering matters like protections for younger immigrants who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children.

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But that big-picture approach failed in the Senate earlier this month, partly because the inclusion of additional immigration issues ended up angering stakeholders on both the right and the left.

Cuellar also expressed doubt that the committee would have the bandwidth to strike a grand bargain on immigration, even as he said he would like to figure out a way to give permanent protections to those shielded from deportation by the Obama-era DACA program.

"I wish it would," he told CNN. "But under the circumstances, the timing that we have here ... I'm skeptical."

That would seem to bring the focus back to straight-up border security funding — and the wall.

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Republicans on Wednesday cited physical barriers as important parts of an overall border security package. Even some key Democrats have showed openness toward some form of border infrastructure, if not the wall that Trump campaigned on.

"Everything is on the table," House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said.

But Democrats like Cuellar have taken a harder line against a border wall. He cited his experience living on the border to explain that it's impractical to build a wall in many areas and that money would be better spent stemming the flow of illicit drugs that move through ports of entry.

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And it's worth noting that the Democrats' preliminary offer does not include wall funding.

Instead, they are proposing funding for hundreds more Customs and Border Protection officers; new x-ray capabilities at ports of entry, along with other technological improvements; more humanitarian aid for migrants; and an expansion of CBP's air and marine operations along the border.

Those sort of proposals — the lack of barrier funding, notwithstanding — could appeal to many Republicans. Often lost in the immigration debate is that many Republicans and Democrats agree on a host of improvements that could be made along the border.

Among Granger's priorities, for instance, are upgraded technology, more boots on the ground, more canine units and better funding for the immigration court system.

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"As we talk about things like barriers, let's also remember that there are other things that need to be funded," she said ahead of the meeting.