US President Donald Trump on Saturday said opposition Democrats were more concerned with "illegal immigrants" than the military or the country's border security after lawmakers failed to agree a stop-gap spending deal.

"Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border," he wrote in an early morning tweet. "They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!"

From midnight Friday, in the absence of an agreed spending plan, federal services began to come to a halt or be scaled back.

Source: AFP