Hey, good morning. It is Saturday, February the 14th, and for the third time during Donald Trump's second term in office, the federal government is experiencing a shutdown.

At midnight last night, funding lapsed for the Department of Homeland Security as Democrats and Republicans

maintain an impasse over Trump's brutal immigration crackdown. This partial shutdown is limited.

It only affects the Department of Homeland Security, but the EHS is a large and sprawling

department that handles much more than just immigration enforcement. It oversees a total of 16

federal agencies, including ICE, Border Patrol, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,

the Transportation Security Administration, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service, among others.

Although this latest spending battle is an extension of the larger fight over immigration,

ICE and Border Patrol are actually the least likely to feel the effects of this shutdown.

When Republicans supercharged Donald Trump's immigration agenda through the so-called

One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, they included a provision that allows ICE to access

$30 billion to pay its employees even in the event of a shutdown.

There's a similar provision for border control, which is even bigger.

They'll continue to have access to $65 billion that's been set aside specifically for that agency.

On the other hand, employees of other DHS agencies like TSA will work without pay until

Congress reaches a deal. They could be waiting a while because both the House and the Senate

have already left town and are not expected to be in session again until February the 23rd.

Right now, Democrats and Republicans appear to be miles apart in negotiations.

Democrats want the Trump administration to make meaningful changes to immigration operations,

and their list of demands includes prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks,

requiring them to display identifying information, like an ID number on their uniforms.

They also want ICE to carry out a more targeted operation and to end indiscriminate arrests that have led to legal immigrants and American citizens being detained. To counteract new

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