Shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration began limiting flights to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and two others Friday based on air traffic controller shortages, President Donald Trump announced a deal to temporarily reopen the federal government.
The president’s announcement ended the longest shutdown in U.S. history at 35 days without securing any money for his proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to Politico, following Trump’s speech from the Rose Garden both the Senate and House quickly passed legislation by voice votes to fund the government until Feb. 15 so that negotiators could try to hammer out a compromise on immigration and border security. Trump signed the measure Friday night.
It was a reversal for the president, who had been insisting for weeks that he wouldn’t reopen the government until lawmakers agreed to appropriate more than $5 billion for the border wall.
Politico reported that a senior administration official said the president would make sure the 800,000 federal workers —who have gone without a paycheck for more than a month — would receive back pay “very quickly or as soon as possible.”
