In this Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019, photo visitors to Great Smoky Mountain National Park drive through the park but facilities like the Sugarlands and Cades Cove visitor centers in Townsend, Tenn. Nonprofits, businesses and state governments nationwide are putting up money and volunteer hours in a battle to keep national parks safe and clean for visitors as the partial U.S. government shutdown lingers. (Robert Berlin/The Daily Times via AP) 
President Donald Trump speaks on the South Lawn of the White House as he walks to Marine One, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Washington. Trump is en route to Camp David. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) 
A boy looks at the border wall, topped with razor wire and bathed in floodlights from the U.S. side, as he walks on the beach Monday, Jan. 7, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. With no breakthrough in sight, President Donald Trump will argue his case to the nation Tuesday night that a “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border requires the long and invulnerable wall he’s demanding before ending the partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) 
Charts show the number of Southwest border apprehensions since 2000; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm; 
Federal Aviation Administration employee Michael Jessie, who is currently working without pay as an aviation safety inspector for New York international field office overseeing foreign air carriers, holds a sign while attending a news conference at Newark Liberty International Airport, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in Newark, N.J. U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez called a news conference at the airport to address the partial government shutdown, which is keeping some airport employees working without pay. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) 
FILE – In this Saturday, Dec. 29, 2018, file photo, a man passes a Mexican migrant baby to her mother after they jump the border fence to get to the U.S. side to San Diego, from Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza, File) 
ADDS TO CLARIFY THAT COMPANIES ARE OPPOSING SHAREHOLDER VOTE ON PROPOSAL – FILE – In this Dec. 9, 2018, file photo, the striped shadow of the U.S. border wall falls on a migrant family as they walk on U.S. soil near Imperial Beach, Calif., after squeezing through a small hole under the border wall aided by two local guides, seen from Tijuana, Mexico. The nation’s two largest private detention companies don’t want a shareholder vote on resolutions that would prevent them from housing immigrant children separated from their parents, even though both companies say that is not something they currently do. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File) 
A man holds on to the border wall along the beach, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. Ready to make his case on prime-time TV, President Donald Trump is stressing humanitarian as well as security concerns at the U.S.-Mexico border as he tries to convince America he must get funding for his long-promised border wall before ending a partial government shutdown that has hundreds of thousands of federal workers facing missed paychecks. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) 
President Donald Trump speaks from the Oval Office of the White House as he gives a prime-time address about border security Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2018, in Washington. (Carlos Barria/Pool Photo via AP)
WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump made a somber televised plea for border wall funding Tuesday night, seeking an edge in his shutdown battle with congressional Democrats as he declared there is “a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”
Addressing the nation from the Oval Office for the first time, Trump argued for funding on security and humanitarian grounds as he sought to put pressure on newly empowered Democrats amid an extended partial government shutdown.
Trump called on Democrats to return to the White House to meet with him, saying it was “immoral” for “politicians to do nothing.” Previous meetings have led to no agreement.
Responding in their own televised remarks, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of misrepresenting the situation on the border as they urged him to reopen closed government departments and turn loose paychecks for hundreds of thousands of workers.
Schumer said Trump “just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”
Response was fast and critical from Colorado Democrats.
“America is not a nation built on fear,” said Aurora Democratic Congressman Jason Crow. “The community I represent is made stronger by its immigrants and more vibrant because of its diversity. I will never stand silent when anyone, including President Trump, vilifies certain communities and attempts to divide us as a community. I will simply not tolerate fear mongering as a bargaining tool.”
Criticism focused on Trump’s fabrications, alarmism and refusal to end the shutdown before negotiating the border issue.
“The #TrumpShutdown is what happens when you have a President who is willfully indifferent to the struggles of Americans who work for a living,” Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said in a tweet. “If @realDonaldTrump got up from the Resolute Desk and walked down the hall, his Chief of Staff could explain to him that his views on a wall are “simplistic,” “absurd” and “almost childish,” referring to a CNN story.
State Democrats were equally critical.
“President Trump’s immoral pursuit of an expensive, unnecessary border wall is hurting Colorado workers and their families, and sends the wrong message of what America represents,” saidColorado Democrats Executive Director Pilar Chapa. “House Democrats, including members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation, have passed multiple bills that would reopen the government, yet President Trump continues to hold workers’ paychecks hostage.
“Tonight’s address shows yet again that the President cares more about his vanity project than he does about hardworking people who are being hurt by this Trump Shutdown,” Chapa said.
Trump, who has long railed against illegal immigration at the border, has recently seized on humanitarian concerns to argue there is a broader crisis that can only be solved with a wall. But critics say the security risks are overblown and the administration is at least partly to blame for the humanitarian situation.
Trump used emotional language, referring to Americans who were killed by people in the country illegally, saying: “I’ve met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration. I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers. So sad. So terrible.”
The president often highlights such incidents, though studies over several years have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
Trump has been discussing the idea of declaring a national emergency to allow him to move forward with the wall without getting congressional approval for the $5.7 billion he’s requested. But he did not mention that Tuesday night.
With his use of a formal White House speech instead of his favored Twitter blasts, Trump embraced the ceremonial trappings of his office as he tries to exit a political quagmire of his own making. For weeks he has dug in on a signature campaign promise to his base voters, the pledge to build an impregnable “beautiful” wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The partial government shutdown reached its 18th day, making the closure the second-longest in history. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going without pay, and government disruptions are hitting home with everyday Americans.
— Sentinel Colorado contributed to this report.