Hundreds of thousands of employees of the US government are forced to stay home without pay on Monday as Republican lawmakers failed to reach a deal with Democrats on ending a government shutdown.
Republicans and Democrats claimed that progress had been made in a weekend of talks on the issue, but they cancelled a scheduled late-night Sunday vote on a stopgap funding measure. Now the vote is expected to take place on Monday afternoon (1700 GMT).
US President Donald Trump has accused opposition Democrats of taking Americans hostage by their demands, which, according to him, triggered the government shutdown.
He accused them of placing immigrants ahead of American citizens and shutting down the government in the service of their base.
“Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don’t want to do it but are powerless!” he tweeted on Monday, referring to the Democratic leadership in Congress.