Your kids’ and grandkids’ tax dollars at work
Trump’s BBB is a huge windfall for the Department of Homeland Security:
“The bill gives ICE $29.8 billion to hire new staff and conduct deportations. That will lead to a hiring spurt of deportation officers; an additional $4.1 billion bump goes to Customs and Border Protection for new personnel.
“For immigration detention, also overseen by ICE, the bill allocates a whopping $45 billion.
“If that’s not enough, there’s more: Remember the wall? It was Trump’s big immigration-related promise during the 2016 campaign. It didn’t get built during his first term (and Mexico never paid for it, as Trump promised). Congress allocated $46.5 billion for its construction in this legislation. (A Senate source tells TPM that this, too, was drafted in such a way as to be fungible, so it could be used for building detention facilities as well).
“It’s a headspinning increase from ICE’s 2024 funding, that, per a recent CRS report, stood at $9.9 billion.
“At the same time, the bill adds only a modest number of immigration judges, capping the number at 800 starting in November 2028 — an increase from the current approximately 700.”
“They’re borrowing the tax dollars of future taxpayers to invert Emma Lazarus: Deport the tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Shame
Billions borrowed for ICE
“The bill gives ICE $29.8 billion to hire new staff and conduct deportations. That will lead to a hiring spurt of deportation officers; an additional $4.1 billion bump goes to Customs and Border Protection for new personnel.
“For immigration detention, also overseen by ICE, the bill allocates a whopping $45 billion.
“If that’s not enough, there’s more: Remember the wall? It was Trump’s big immigration-related promise during the 2016 campaign. It didn’t get built during his first term (and Mexico never paid for it, as Trump promised). Congress allocated $46.5 billion for its construction in this legislation. (A Senate source tells TPM that this, too, was drafted in such a way as to be fungible, so it could be used for building detention facilities as well).
“It’s a headspinning increase from ICE’s 2024 funding, that, per a recent CRS report, stood at $9.9 billion.
“At the same time, the bill adds only a modest number of immigration judges, capping the number at 800 starting in November 2028 — an increase from the current approximately 700.”
“They’re borrowing the tax dollars of future taxpayers to invert Emma Lazarus: Deport the tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Shame
Billions borrowed for ICE