Melanie Lockridge and her 2-year-old daughter Zariyah attend a rally hosted by University of Chicago medical students to call on Congress to reauthorize funding forthe Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on December 14, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images)
A bill that would grant money to the Children’s Health Insurance Program for three months is making its way through Congress, as part of a deal to avert a government shutdown.
The proposal would keep CHIP funded until March 31, 2018. The program expired in October and has not been renewed since — to much criticism from Democrats, as Republicans ate up the legislative calendar passing a major permanent tax break for corporations.
House Democrats are expected to vote against the deal — a continuing resolution that would keep federal agencies open until the middle of January. The United States government runs out of money, again, on Friday, two weeks after facing a similar deadline.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decried the inadequacy of the funding bill, in a press conference on Thursday morning.
“It’s an interesting week as we prepare to go home soon,” Pelosi said, referring to the holiday break. “I don’t know when that is.”
The Democratic leader had appeared earlier before the House Rules Committee to lobby for the inclusion of the DREAM Act — a bill that would give status to the 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
The Obama administration granted the Dreamers a reprieve from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The protections were withdrawn in September by the Trump administration and are set to expire in March.
Despite Pelosi’s efforts, its not clear Senate Democrats have the votes to stop a government funding deal that would exclude the Dream Act — though Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined colleagues in opposition over the Trump administration’s treatment of Dreamers, after it previously…