White House director of legislative affairs Marc Short said Wednesday any legislation to keep the federal government open would most likely not contain any provisions to protect Dreamers brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
"I don't think that's going to happen," Short told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. "The reality is we're going to face another [continuing resolution]."
A continuing resolution is a stopgap measure that would keep the government running through next month.
Without it or some longer-term funding measure, the federal government will run out of money Friday at midnight.
A 16-day partial federal government shutdown in October 2013 cost American taxpayers $1.4 billion.
Democrats say they will not support any funding measure that does not include legislation to address the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — while conservative Republicans said they will not back a continuing resolution to protest rising budget spending levels.
Trump doubled-down on his rejection last week of a bipartisan plan to protect Dreamers, saying Wednesday a shutdown "could happen" if no funding measure is passed.
Short told Blitzer that using CR's to keep the government running was "frustrating to us, because we put our budget out in February.
"Here we are with Congress still not having a bill in place."
Still, Short predicted the government will not shut down this week.
"I don't think so," he told Blitzer. "We need to make sure our troops are funded, national security is funded, government employees are funded."
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