Transcript of Senate Funding Vote, ICE Family Detention Protest, Fed Holds Interest Rates

Senator Chuck Schumer threatens a partial government shutdown.

Senate Democrats are united. We need to reign in ICE and end the violence.

They'll block Homeland Security Funding until there are limits on immigration agents.

I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News. A protest outside an ICE family detention center in South Texas turned chaotic after police in riot gear appeared. Demonstrators demand the of five-year-old Liam Ramos, who was detained with his father hundreds of miles away in Minnesota.

And despite pressure from President Trump, the Federal Reserve is holding interest rates steady as prices keep climbing and more people see layoffs.

The best thing we can do for people who are feeling that squeeze is to keep inflation under control.

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Senate Democrats say they're going to block a government funding package that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security until there are reforms to how immigration agents are working in this country.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke with reporters in the Capitol yesterday.

Senate Democrats are united on a set of common sense and necessary policy goals that we need to reign in ice and end the violence.

Either lawmakers make some agreement or there will be another partial government shutdown at the end of the day on Friday.

Npr Congressional Correspondent Claudia Cresades has been following this and joins us now. Good morning, Claudia.

Good morning, Leela.

Okay, so this same package passed with significant bipartisan support last week in the House, but then we saw the killing of Alex Pretty over the weekend in Minneapolis by federal agents So how did that change what we expect to happen in the Senate?

Well, in some ways, it changed everything. The Senate is supposed to vote today to advance this $1. 3 trillion package. It's a six-bill package, and one of those funds DHS, while the other five addresses other parts of the government. Yesterday, we heard Democrats detail this list of reforms they want to see input implemented before they support the DHS funding after federal immigration officers shot and killed Alex Freddie in Minneapolis over the weekend.

What are they asking for?

They want to pass those five other spending bills in the package and leave DHS out while they renegotiate those terms. Schumer told reporters he also wants new rules set around warrants. He wants tightened cooperation with local law enforcement, create a new uniform code of conduct, as well as use of force rules. They want more accountability and transparency, including taking off the and putting body cameras on. But it's unclear if the Senate can reach a deal on this in time. Otherwise, we could see other parts of the government, in addition to DHS, like the Defense Department Health and Human Services, lose funding starting this weekend.

It takes months to negotiate these bipartisan funding packages. So is it even possible for them to pass those kinds of changes at this point?

Well, it is a tall order. The Senate would need consent from all of its members to split up these bills, perhaps setting up a series of new votes, renegotiating DHS bill in time to try and pass it.

And how have Republicans responded?

Well, Thune and other leaders maintain they can't split this package up. They know it would be a hard pass in the House. Here's Thune.

I think it's Really important, if possible, to do it here, not to have to send it back to the House of Representatives, where the future of an appropriations package, I think, would be somewhat uncertain.

But we should note, we heard some mixed signals last night. Some rank and file Republican senators said they're on board. I heard one say at least a bunch of his colleagues would agree to the move. It's an indicator of how at least some Republicans see this as a high political stakes moment to respond to Freddie's death.

Are there any other ways they could come to a solution without the risk of this partial shutdown?

Well, Thune is one key Republican saying, yes, he says Democrats need to work this out directly with the White House. Some suggest that could come in the form of executive orders. We're watching ongoing conversations between Schumer, other Democrats, and the White House for any clues of a different off-ramp. But we should know many Democrats don't trust something that does not become law that sets up this stalemate with no clear solution at the moment.

That's NPR's Claudia Grisales. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Police with riot gear confronted nearly 200 protesters on Wednesday in South Texas. They were outside ICE Family Detention Center.

The protesters want the release of five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father. They were detained in Minnesota last week and taken there.

Ramos is the little boy in that now iconic image, wearing a bunny ear hat and being led off by immigration agents. Now, Joey Palacios with Texas Public Radio was there covering that protest and joins us now. Hey, Joey, what happened?

Hey, good morning. This was at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilly, Texas. That's about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio. As the name says, it's for detained immigrant families. Now, this protest that happened, it was peaceful. There was chanting. There were people holding signs that said, Abolish ICE or Bring Liam Home. Here, there were people of all ages It started at a city park, and they marched to the front gate of the center that was about two miles away. There, they were met by a handful of state troopers, and behind those state troopers, about 60 feet away, were about a dozen masked ICE agents. Gabriel Felix was one of the protesters who came because of Liam Ramos. I think it's absolutely disgusting. I mean, he's five years old, and they took him from his home in Minneapolis and pretty much brought him down here. Then all of a sudden, as these folks were at the gate of the center, a school bus drove up, and it was full of state troopers in riot gear. They formed a line and then began moving towards protesters, and there were some pushing back and forth Then there was this pop, pop, pop.

They started to use pepper balls to disperse the crowd. There was another loud pop and a lot of white smoke. It started to hit me and our producer, Sam, as well as the protesters and other media there. It was hard to breathe. We couldn't see. Leila, it was like breathing hot sauce. It was not pleasant. In the end, Texas DPS said that two people were arrested for resisting arrest. Arrests and interfering with public duties.

Now, congressman, Waukeen Castro from San Antonio, toured the facility yesterday and met with Liam Ramos and his father. What did he say about what he saw?

Right. Castro visited the detention center earlier in the day with Congresswoman Jasmine Crocket, and they met with Liam Ramos and his father for about 30 minutes. Castro said the boy appeared physically and emotionally affected by his detention. He was lying in his father's arms. His father said that Liam has been very depressed since he's been at Dilly, that he hasn't been eating well. His father said that Liam has been sleeping a lot, that he's been asking about his family, his mom, and his classmates, and saying that he wants to go be back in school with his classmates. Castro said the family entered the US legally and are waiting for their asylum case. And earlier this week on Monday, Liam Ramos' mother in Minnesota said that her son is getting sick from the quality of food in the facility.

Now, this facility also had a protest inside by detainees last week. What happened there?

That's right. This one started after guards ordered an immigration attorney to leave while detainees, many of them children, poured into open areas of the center and chanted libertad or freedom. Now, this is according to that attorney who captured it on his phone. Later, there was drone footage by the Associated Press that showed large crowds in the outside died portions of the facility. Now, attorney Eric Lee said his clients that he later spoke with told him the detaining protests also was triggered by concerns over the treatment of Liam Ramos and the overall conditions at the facility for the other children.

So, Joey, what are ICE officials saying about this case?

So ICE didn't respond to our request for comment, but the Department of Homeland Security has said that the child was taken into custody after his father fled in an encounter with agents. Dhs says agents followed federal law and standard enforcement procedures in the case, but we should note that bystanders and school board officials who witnessed the incident have contradicted DHS's version of events. Now, a federal judge in San Antonio ruled this week that Liam Ramos and his father cannot be removed or transferred from the facility while the court case further release continues. It also causes any attempt to deport them.

Joey Palacios with Texas Public Radio. Thank Thank you for your reporting.

Thanks, Leila.

The cost of borrowing money is holding steady for now.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve voted to leave interest rates unchanged this week. The Fed is trying to strike a balance between keeping interest rates high enough to fight inflation, but not so high as to cause a spike in unemployment.

Npr Scott Horsley joins us now. Hey, Scott.

Good Good morning.

Good morning. So, worries about the job market caused the Fed to lower interest rates the last three times the board met. Have those worries gone away?

Not entirely. We're still seeing pretty weak hiring in the job market. Just this week, Amazon and UPS announced big layoffs. That said, unemployment is still relatively low, just 4. 4% in December. The Fed says there are some signs that the unemployment rate is stabilizing. For the moment, the central bank is putting its focus on inflation and prices that are still going up faster than Fed chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues would like.

We do hear a lot about affordability, and we take that very seriously, and we take it to heart.

The best thing we can do for people who are feeling that squeeze is to keep inflation under control, and frankly, to finish the job of getting inflation back down to 2%.

Inflation was more like 3% in December, according to the Fed's preferred yards, Dick. And Pal says a big reason for that overshoot is President Trump's tariff's. Now, US importers have absorbed some of the tariff costs so far. They haven't all found their way into consumer prices. Powell thinks we are going to see some more tariff-related price hikes in the coming months, but after that, inflation might settle down unless we get a whole bunch of new tariffs.

Now, President Trump has been leaning hard on the Fed to make deeper cuts in interest rates. What effect does that have?

Not a whole lot, at least yet. Trump has tried to fire a member of the Fed's governing board. He's threatened to fire Powell himself. The Justice Department even lost an investigation of the Fed over the cost of a building project here in Washington. Although Powell says that was really just a pretext and another way to put pressure on the central bank. By design, the Fed is supposed to be insulated from that political influence. Powell says history shows central banks do a better job of fighting inflation when they're not under the thumb of elected leaders.

Every advanced economy democracy in the world has come around to this common practice, and that is to not have direct elected official control over the setting of monetary policy.

That's because politicians will almost always favor lower interest rates to juice the economy before the next election, even if higher rates might be better for the long-term health of the economy.

Now, Powell's days as Fed Chairman are numbered. Do we know yet who's going to take his place?

Not yet. The President is expected to nominate a new Fed chairman pretty soon. Powell's term is up in May, so he's got two more rate-setting meetings before he gives up his leadership post. Trump clearly wants a replacement who will push for lower interest rates, and whoever the President chooses is going to face questions about whether they can act independently or if they're simply going to do Trump's bidding. One thing to keep in mind, though, the Fed chair is just one vote among 12 people on the rate setting committee, and that person may have limited sway over his colleagues. Trump named a White House economist, Stephen Myron, to the Fed board last fall. Myron voted at three straight meetings for a supersized half-point rate cut, but none of his colleagues went along.

Npr is Scott Horsley. Thank you, Scott.

You're welcome.

And that's Up First for Thursday, January 29th. I'm Leila Faldin.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Up First gives you the three big stories of the day. Consider this from NPR News, dives into a single news story and what it means to you. Learn about a big story of the day. And it's also brief, less than 15 minutes like this podcast, podcasts that respect your time. You actually get to the end. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode of First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Susanna Capaluto, Raphael Naam, Mohamed El-Bredisi, and Alice Wolfly. It was produced by Zied Butch, Nia Dumas, Ava Puketch, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes. Our technical director, is Carly Strange. Our Deputy Executive producer is Kelly Dickens. Join us again tomorrow.

This week on Consider This, ICE agents in Minnesota now reporting to Tom Homan, the architect of the President's family separation policy. Who does Homan report to?

Up until now, it's been Stephen Miller, but I think the administration is seeing how much trouble listening to Miller has gotten them in when it comes to public opinion.

This week on Consider This, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This year on NPR's Throughline, Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness. For centuries, America's pursuit has changed the world. Now, 250 years later, who are we? Where are we headed? Join us every Tuesday for a brand new series, America in Pursuit. On Thru-Line, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.