SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Governor Jay Inslee of the U.S. state of Washington criticized President Donald Trump Friday for taking hundreds of thousands of federal employees "hostage" because of Trump's unyielding position on funding a border wall that led to partial government shutdown.
"Today, hundreds of thousands of federal workers -- including nearly 13,000 Washingtonians -- are not receiving their paychecks because President Trump continues to hold them and the families they serve hostage while he pushes for a useless border wall," Inslee said in a tweet.
Trump ordered shutdown of some government agencies on Dec. 22, after he failed to strike a deal with lawmakers over Congress-approved funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants from Central America.
As the partial shutdown is dragging into the third week with no obvious end in sight, many U.S. public sector workers missed their first payday of the year on Friday and a quarter of the federal government staff, about 800,000 employees, have been furloughed or have been working without pay for weeks.
"These workers, many of them veterans, will once again try to sleep tonight with the insecurity of not knowing when their next paycheck is coming or how they will be able to pay their mortgages or rent. Meanwhile, the impacts of this shutdown are starting to feel real," Inslee said.
President Trump has refused to approve a federal budget proposed by Democrats-held Congress unless it includes funding for the border wall.
Inslee slammed Trump's "destructive rhetoric" as making negotiations harder, not easier.
"And his insistence on this shutdown shows he puts his own political interests above the interests of the nation. This record-long shutdown has to end," said the governor.
He said students applying for financial aid await the approval they need so they can register for classes.
"Emergency food supplies for food pantries & meal systems will be disrupted. The likelihood of ferry disruptions is growing with the prospect of missed U.S. Coast Guard inspections," Inslee warned on Twitter.
