By Miriam Raftery

January 16, 2019 (Washington D.C.) – President Donald Trump today signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act into law, which passed Congress with bipartisan support.  It provides that furloughed and exempted federal employees will receive back pay whenever this shutdown ends.

But it does not grant any back pay to federal contractors, many of who are struggling without pay.

By Miriam Raftery

December 28, 2018 (San Diego) – As a government shutdown over a budget impasse enters its second week, President Donald Trump today threatened to shut down the entire U.S.-Mexico border indefinitely unless Congress passes a budget with billions of dollars in funding to build a border wall.

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Trump said in a morning tweet. 

But in fact, Republicans still control both the House and Senate until January 3, when Democrats will become the majority party in the House of Representatives—and Congress adjourned for the holidays without passing the President’s budget.

The San Diego and Imperial County Chambers of Commerce estimated that a one-day border shutdown at San Ysidro, one of the world's busiest border crossings, over Thanksgiving weekend cost an estimated $5 million in lost revenues to the San Diego County economy. 

Shut down to cost San Diego region $7 million each week

October 5, 2013 (Washington D.C.) --  By a unanimous vote, the House of Representatives approved back pay to all furloughed federal workers for the full duration of the federal shutdown.  The Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act (H.R. 3223), was approved by the House of Representatives 407-0 during a rare Saturday session.