None of the administration’s priorities do anything to help struggling Americans with their bills
This week, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) signaled that the $1 billion that his Republican colleagues are demanding for Donald Trump’s ballroom could be stripped from the budget reconciliation bill before it heads to the Senate floor, The Hill reports.
Good. When recent data reveals that inflation is at the highest level in three years and grocery prices are at the highest level in nearly four years, the last thing on any working person’s mind is funding a vanity project that most Americans don’t want. You know what else lawmakers shouldn’t be funding? The unchecked mass deportation machine that already got $190 billion in funding last year. But under Senate Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, the president and Stephen Miller are demanding an additional $70 billion – with no guardrails.
While a $1 billion investment into a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom would be just the latest example of gaudy excess benefitting Trump’s circle of elite buddies and private contractors, $70 billion would risk us all by continuing to fund cruelty, government waste, and lawlessness. Here are some reminders of what’s at stake.
REPUBLICANS ALREADY HANDED ICE AND CBP THE LARGEST ANTI-IMMIGRANT FUNDING SURGE IN US HISTORY
Last year, the big, ugly budget bill passed by Congressional Republicans already provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with roughly $191 billion, including enough funding to turn ICE into the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in our nation’s history. That $75 billion earmarked for ICE alone is seven times ICE’s typical annual budget. The $65 billion earmarked for CBP, meanwhile, is four times its typical budget.
Neither congressional appropriators nor independent watchdogs can easily track how the money is being used. That’s a particularly worrying trend when private contractors are getting all sorts of sketchy, secretive government deals to work on Trump’s taxpayer-funded redecorating.
Trump on Iran War:Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation
But working Americans struggling to pay their bills? Too bad. That same bill in 2025 cut $1 trillion from healthcare and $186 billion from food assistance. Just this week, Trump plainly stated that he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial difficulties. Worried about drugs or gun violence plaguing your neighborhood? Too bad. 80% of ATF agents have been pulled from gun trafficking investigations in order to help with mass deportation. The same goes for 50% of DEA agents fighting fentanyl and drug cartels, and 20% of FBI time that was spent on violent crime and terrorism is now spent on harassing immigrant moms and dads. Feeling safer yet?
ABUSES AND LAWLESSNESS ARE HURTING U.S.-BORN AMERICANS AND IMMIGRANTS ALIKE
We knew that any of us could be targeted under mass deportation if Trump returned to power, and the past year and a half has unfortunately shown that our fears were totally founded. Last October, we noted the horrific harassment of Leo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen and construction worker who was targeted by mass deportation agents twice while working his essential construction job. But this month, Garcia Venegas was targeted for a third time, this time after coming home from a convenience store, Mother Jones reports.
“In a declaration submitted as part of a civil lawsuit, Garcia Venegas said the agents pulled him out of the car and onto the ground, and shackled his arms and legs,” the report said. “Garcia Venegas estimates seven or eight law enforcement personnel, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and local police—most of whom wore plain clothes and tactical vests—surrounded him. They asked him no questions.”
During each of the three instances of harassment, the U.S.-born citizen tried to show mass deportation agents his REAL ID – a form of identification that requires lawful presence in the U.S. And each of the three times, federal agents ignored him. “I live in constant fear that I will be subjected to further baseless detentions just for going about my daily life,” he said following his third unjust detention. “I only wish to live my life in peace.”
RULE OF LAW? REFORMS? YEAH RIGHT.
The same president who was found guilty of 34 felony counts has given his administration permission to similarly flout the rule of law, including violating court orders in at least 31 lawsuits, with more than 250 individual instances of noncompliance. This has been aided by the conservative faction of the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year sanctioned the dreaded “Kavanaugh stops” that have resulted in the harassment of Americans like Leo Garcia Venegas simply because of their appearance and accent.
Trump is now demanding enough funding to continue his mass deportation campaign to the end of his term – and his lackeys have made perfectly clear they have no plans to correct their abuses. “We’re in the process of hiring 10,000 more agents,” said so-called border czar Tom Homan. “I expect the [deportation] numbers to increase.” Homan further threatened to “flood the zone” with ICE agents in New York, saying that “You ain’t seen shit yet. We’re gonna continue this mission. We’re not giving an inch.”
This was affirmed by DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin. “We haven’t missed a beat. We’re still on track – pushing as hard as we can,” he said.
Most Americans don’t want this. 51% say the presence of mass deportation agents is making cities much more or somewhat more dangerous. Half of Americans say deportations have been too aggressive. 75%, including 57% of Republican voters, say ICE should be easily identifiable. Majorities worry about ICE arresting individuals in healthcare settings (DACA recipients in health care fields are facing deportation right now) and healthcare workers being forced to share patient immigration status with federal agents (59%). And 59% prefer giving most undocumented immigrants a pathway to legal status.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Americans have been repelled by the ruthless mass deportation agenda that has targeted their communities regardless of legal immigration status and claimed lives in the streets and lives within detention facilities. They want accountability and reforms to abusive federal immigration enforcement tactics. They want long overdue legalization for their immigrant neighbors and their families, and they want stability for everyone struggling to pay their bills right now. They certainly don’t want a vanity ballroom either. But the budget reconciliation bill ignores all of their pleas, instead catering to the whims of two people and two people alone: Trump and Miller.
