Chapter 1: What are the chances of a federal government shutdown over ICE?
Parsing chances for a new government shutdown as Saturday dawns. Let's update the possibility of a federal government shutdown late this week, given a dispute over reform and funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which also includes immigration and customs enforcement. ICE does have the money to keep going even during a partial shutdown. Marketplace is
Nancy Marshall-Genzer joins us now to explain.
Well, David, ICE would essentially be insulated from the effects of a shutdown, and that's because it has a giant pot of money at its disposal, extra funding over and above its official budget, which the Senate is fighting over right now. And this is extra cash from President Trump's tax and spending bill, known as the Big Beautiful Bill Act. It gave ICE $75 billion.
Normally essential federal workers would be required to work without pay during one of these. Will ICE agents be paid if the government closes again?
Well, during the last shutdown just last fall, ICE agents did work without pay initially, but in mid-October, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced they would be paid. Laura Blessing is a senior fellow at Georgetown University. She told me ICE could dip into the Big Beautiful Bill money again to keep paying its agents if there is another shutdown. Whether or not they would be
paid exactly on time isn't something that I want to speculate about. That being said, there are funds available for them to be paid again if passed as prologue.
And Nancy, Democrats are pushing for reforms to ICE, which is more about policy and perhaps less about money. But you're in Washington.
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Chapter 2: How is ICE financially prepared for a potential government shutdown?
What are the odds the government closes yet again as Saturday begins?
They're pretty good, David. Senate Democrats do want to insert language into the legislation funding ICE, requiring agents to identify themselves, obtain warrants for arrests, and cooperate with local law enforcement.
Nancy Marshall-Genzer, thank you. In just over seven hours, we'll get the big briefing on inflation, jobs, and growth from the head of the Federal Reserve. They could, but they will not, lower interest rates today, I say with confidence. Katherine Ann Edwards is a labor economist and host of the Optimist Economy podcast.
The economy is slowly slowing down. Most of the job growth we've seen over the last year came from services that do not reflect economic strength, but rather population, things like health care and education services. And many of our more cyclical sectors are down for the year. That's not a good sign.
Prices have fallen, but they're a little bit stalled out and not getting down to the inflation target. And there's been the sense for almost a year now that the Fed is waiting to see which way the economy breaks with prices going up requiring interest rates to rise or the labor market going south requiring interest rates to fall.
They don't have enough data in either direction to be definitive in what is the right move for the economy yet.
Men's World Cup could give the U.S. economy a $30 billion boost. The matches, spread across 16 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, could draw up to 7 million ticket holders. About half will be international visitors if, that is, the U.S. lets them in. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.
The Trump administration has stepped up vetting of all foreign visitors to the U.S., says State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mignon Houston.
This was a promise made by this administration, really taking every visa decision as a national security decision.
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