Alex Wong/Getty Images Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump.
- The government will enter a partial shutdown at midnight unless Congress passes a funding bill.
- President Donald Trump invited Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to the White House to try and broker a deal to keep the government open.
- Schumer and Democrats are insisting that the funding bill include a codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program.
President Donald Trump is putting his famous "dealmaking" ability to the test in a last-ditch effort to avoid a government shutdown.
Trump requested that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer come to the White House to try to hash out a deal on a funding package that would keep the government open beyond the midnight deadline.
Schumer and Senate Democrats have refused to pass a bill that would fund the government until February 16. The House passed the legislation on Thursday.
Democrats are insisting that any funding bill include a codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program. The DACA program shields from deportation nearly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who entered the US as minors.
Trump originally kicked off the fight over DACA by ending the program in September. The president built in a six-month delay for the program's end to give Congress time to pass a bill to protect the more than 700,000 DACA recipients.
With the deadline looming at the beginning of March, Schumer and the Democrats are attempting use the shutdown as leverage to get a DACA solution through Congress.
Schumer also proposed a short-term funding bill that lasts a few days to finish hashing out an agreement on the DACA fix. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of the GOP leadership rejected the idea.
McConnell will not attend the meeting, per reports.