Washington, DC — We’ve been highlighting the high cost of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant obsessions and plans for indiscriminate mass deportations, noting that even real public safety threats are being deprioritized in the process. The ongoing budget process playing out on Capitol Hill also underscores the point.
President Trump and Republican allies in Congress are seeking to increase spending on their mass deportation agenda up to tenfold the current CBP and ICE budget for building a border wall and immigration enforcement, including ICE agents, detention beds, and scaled-up deportation resources while failing to provide key details about how the money would be used (see our breakdown of three key questions that need to be asked here). Of note, this blank check would come as the Trump administration already is demonstrating that its enforcement efforts are indiscriminate, targeting long-settled immigrants rather than actual public safety threats.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Trump and his Republican allies are seeking to gut health care, child care and other vital programs for everyday Americans in favor of terrorizing communities and ripping apart families as part of their indiscriminate mass deportation agenda. Once again, their anti-immigrant obsessions come at a high cost for all of us.
Already we are witnessing the fear, the chaos and the harms of the Trump and Republican immigration agenda – not just on undocumented immigrants, but on all of us. Now, they’re asking for a blank check to turbocharge mass deportations in a manner that wouldn’t advance public safety or reform a broken immigration system, but would harm our economy and competitiveness, destroy key industries, and trample on American families and American values.”
Resources and Background
Last week, America’s Voice highlighted three key questions that needed to be asked of the massive budget request and seeking specifics on how funding would be used:
- Will ICE continue to arrest, detain and deport indiscriminately, including targeting long-settled immigrants, those who have had legal status, and even U.S. citizens?
- As inflation and the cost of living continue to hurt everyday Americans, how will indiscriminate deportations of long-settled essential workers help lower prices and combat inflation?
- Will this funding continue to prioritize the arrest of immigrants who pose no public safety threat over terrorism and the fight against fentanyl?
