As of this week (January 21, 2019), the government is going into its first full month. It is the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and I am going to explain what it means and why it matters.

A government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to appropriate funds and all non-essential federal programs shut down.

The issue that arose that led to the government shutdown is the funding of the wall that President Trump wants to build. In short, on December 11, 2018, Congressional Democrats met with the president. Trump threatened to shut down the government if they didn't include $5 billion to build the wall. Democrats offered $1.3 billion to continue current border-security funding.

On the 18th of December, Trump agreed to the compromise. Then on the 19th, the Senate approved an extension of current spending until February 8th, 2019.

However, after the Senate approved this, Trumped changed, saying he wouldn't sign for this. On December 20, 2018, the House of Representatives passed a bill that included funding to maintain existing barriers. Senate leaders tried to renegotiate and pass a new spending bill. At 7 p.m. eastern time, it became clear that was not going to happen, and the government shut down.

Because of this, many people are without pay. In fact, at the beginning of the shutdown, 380,000 non-critical employees were sent home without pay until noticed to come back. On January 15, 2019, President Trump called 50,000 of those employees to come back to work without pay. However, there are 420,000 critical employees who have been reporting to work without pay from the beginning of the shutdown.

So, this all goes back to the debate of the wall Trump wants to build in order to decrease illegal immigration. There are many pros and cons to the wall, and here are just a few.

The pros of the wall are that it would make some Americans feel safer, illegal immigration would lessen if it was built, patrolling of the wall would be a lot easier, and it helps the economy.

The cons of the wall are that it is a high cost for Americans to pay, it would obviously not stop illegal immigration at all, it doesn't solve the issue of the lengthy time it takes to become a citizen (which if this time was lessened, illegal immigration would decrease), and there are also many environmental hazards to the wall.

So whether you agree with the wall or not, it is important to know that this shutdown is very serious and the fact that many Americans are not getting paid because of this is absolutely sickening and saddening.