Republicans Want Hundreds of Billions for Deportations

The little-talked-about plan could change the face of immigration enforcement for the next decade

Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash

The House Judiciary, Homeland Security, and Armed Services committees will meet next week to debate appropriating hundreds of billions of dollars for immigration enforcement and deportations. The funding was proposed as part of the Republicans' massive spending bill that will further militarize the border, increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention capacity, and boost ICE’s deportation capability.

As reported by Migrant Insider, Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) authorized committees to find $521 billion for immigration enforcement, and Budget Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) earmarked $345 billion. The funding is reported to be split between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Former Senior Border Patrol Agent and author of Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol Agent to Immigrant Rights Activist, Jenn Budd, likens this funding ask to a move to further circumvent citizens' and noncitizens' Constitutional rights. Much like using the emotions from 9/11 to pass a bill like the Patriot Act, which took many civil liberties, like privacy, and threw them in the trash, Budd argues they’re likely doing it again.

“Considering that the President announced months ago that the border was successfully closed and that the 'invasion was over,’ in his words, I don’t believe these actions have anything to do with national security or securing the border,” said Budd. “This is about keeping the military busy on the border while the administration prepares the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to take away Constitutional rights.”

The House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees will meet on April 29 to debate spending hundreds of billions of dollars on immigration enforcement. The Homeland Security Committee will discuss as much as $90 billion to increase deportations. In comparison, the Armed Services Committee will debate up to $150 billion for the militarization of the border. This number could be higher, as some Republicans have reportedly been pushing for more funds.

“They are funding their takeover,” Budd continued. “With this money, any enemy, documented or not, will become a terrorist, and trust me, the corrupt DHS and all its agencies will be happy for the overtime.“

On April 30, the Judiciary Committee will meet to debate its portion of the package, including $110 billion for immigration enforcement. Republicans are setting aside funding by taking money from social services that elderly, disabled, and poor people rely on to survive. In early May, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will discuss cutting $880 billion from programs it administers, including Medicaid, a “flashpoint” for many Republicans that may kill the “big beautiful bill,” according to Politico.

As part of the reconciliation process, Republicans included additional savings across committee jurisdictions. For example, among other cost-cutting measures, Republicans expect the Agriculture Committee to save as much as $50 billion, the Energy and Commerce Committee to target an extra $200 billion in savings, and the Education and Workforce Committee to eliminate $60 billion. Where those cuts are expected to come from has yet to be specified.

The Deportation Machine

Trump’s deportation machine continues to kidnap and disappear innocent noncitizens and citizens alike. Nowhere in the hundreds of millions of dollars proposed are accountability measures for agencies with little to no oversight. DHS’s child agencies, such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are notorious for human rights abuses. From physical violence to kidnapping and sexual assault, little is done to stop or even mitigate the harm.

A recent article from the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) titled “10 Ways the Budget Reconciliation Bill’s Immigration Enforcement Funds Put Us All At Risk” describes how the bill will allow the Trump administration to continue testing “new and heightened authoritarian tactics” through immigration enforcement as it threatens basic constitutional rights, human rights, and democratic norms.

“The Trump administration is using immigration enforcement as a tool to undermine constitutional protections and fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and association,” reads the NILC article. “This attack is already destabilizing communities and making all of us less safe.”

The April 14 detention of Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident for over 10 years, by ICE agents who took him into custody after he pledged to defend the U.S. Constitution during his citizenship interview highlights how these policies are affecting innocent people. His lawyers argue, based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments saying he was targeting people for their views, that Mahdawi is being targeted for speech advocating for Palestinian human rights.

On Wednesday, a judge scheduled a hearing for Mahdawi’s request for bail.

On Tuesday, three unidentified masked men raided the Albemarle County Courthouse in downtown Charlottesville and took two men away. News reports suggest that this was an “apparent” ICE raid, but witnesses and residents are left wondering if they were government agents at all. One of the men taken into custody had just had his charges dismissed; therefore, not a criminal. When asked, the alleged agents provided no warrants for their arrests.

While innocent people like Merwil Gutiérrez, who was taken off the street and deported to CECOT in El Salvador despite ICE agents admitting they had the wrong person and 19-year-old Jose Hermosillo, a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody and held for 10 days during a year when ICE and CBP had record budgets, it would behoove lawmakers to put guardrails in place. With Republican lawmakers bowing to Trump, barriers and accountability are a stretch.

The Propaganda Train

DHS continues its defamatory attack on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now accusing him of suspected human trafficking while still alleging he is an MS-13 gang member. However, their latest report, citing a 2022 police encounter with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, shows nothing to suggest Abrego Garcia was a human trafficker. Otherwise, he would have been arrested.

That doesn’t stop them from continuing to villainize a man they victimized.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a MS-13 gang member, illegal alien from El Salvador, and suspected human trafficker. The facts reveal he was pulled over with eight individuals in a car on an admitted three-day journey from Texas to Maryland with no luggage,” said Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “The facts speak for themselves, and they reek of human trafficking. The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal gang member has completely fallen apart. We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims,” she continued.

McLaughlin still cites a member of the Prince George's County Police Gang Unit who validated Abrego Garcia as a member of MS-13. However, she continues to ignore that the officer in question was suspended for misconduct around the same time he made the allegation against Abrego Garcia. The officer, Corporal Ivan Mendez, pleaded guilty to criminal misconduct for giving information about a police investigation to a sex worker in December 2018, just months before Abrego Garcia’s arrest in a Home Depot parking lot.

Mendez was placed on a “do not call” list by Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy in 2021 after being deemed unfit to testify in state court over his misconduct. Despite this, the Trump administration continues treating the corrupt officer’s word as if it's trustworthy. As DHS continues to demonize Abrego Garcia, the agency is also beginning similar campaigns against other migrants and citizens wrongfully detained.

The scandal they are trying to create around U.S. citizen Hermosillo, for example, is leading to their lies being exposed and highlights how little they care if you are a citizen or not. This comes as the DHS propaganda machine turns up the heat with new videos released last week claiming the U.S. is safer by deporting handfuls of accused, not convicted, migrants. Additionally, the Department of Defense (DoD) released photos on Thursday of soldiers at the border doing… not much.

“President Trump and I have a clear message to those in our country illegally: LEAVE NOW,” reads a statement from DHS Secretary Krist Noem. “If you do not self-deport, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and deport you. Download the FREE CBP Home app today to self-deport.”

With all the lies recently exposed and the attempts to defy the courts, it’s difficult to take claims made by administration officials seriously, especially considering the problematic history of DHS.

ICE Spending Spree

Despite ICE blowing through last year’s unprecedented budget, the agency is seeking contract proposals worth $45 billion for multiple detention facilities. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained documents that reveal details about ICE’s plans to expand ICE detention facilities in 10 states across the Midwest and West Coast. The documents show that the two largest private prison corporations, CoreCivic and GEO Group, submitted proposals for facilities not currently operated by ICE.

GEO Group signed a $1 billion 15-year contract with ICE in February.

An Open Secrets report shows GEO Group employees and its political action committees contributed $3.7 million to candidates, outside groups, and political committees. The company contributed $1 million to Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC, $775,000 to the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund, and $500,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund. Open Secrets is a nonpartisan research group tracking money in U.S. politics

“The board of directors of GEO Group has extensive links with ICE: Lindsay Koren served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice from 2004 to 2007 and as an attorney advisor to the chief immigration judge,” reads the Open Secrets Report. “Julie Wood was the head of ICE from January 2006 until November 2008. She has served on GEO’s board since 2018. Matthew Albence served in a variety of positions at ICE before joining GEO Group in 2022. A few days before the 2024 presidential elections, the executive associate director at ICE, Daniel Bible, left to become executive vice president at GEO Group — following the same pattern as Daniel Ragsdale, who was the chief operating officer for ICE and joined GEO in 2017 as EVP.”

Open Secrets also highlights that subsidiary GEO Acquisition II, Inc., contributed $1 million to Make America Great Again. In February 2024, GEO’s PAC became the first to max out donations to Trump’s presidential campaign. Two GEO Group executives, founder George Zoley and CEO Brian Evans, each made a $11,600 contribution to Trump’s Save America committee.

Meanwhile, CoreCivic PACs and employees donated $784,974 in the 2024 election cycle, of which $660,170 went to Republican candidates and committees. CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger contributed $300,000 to a joint fundraising committee benefitting the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Homeland Security Secretary Krist Noem, rabid racist and Trump advisor Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and their counterparts in the private prison industry are so sure they’re getting the money in the Republican bill that they’re already spending it, excited about soaring profits off taxpayer dollars in an industry created by inhumanity. They’re happy to profit from the harm they cause to nonwhite people who come from countries the U.S. keeps destabilized.

Some of the same people who helped put Project 2025 together are also part of the prison industrial complex and have close ties to DHS and ICE. It’s no wonder private prison profiteers would flood the Trump administration with money. After all, he did guarantee them an industry boom by openly offering them the prospect of transferring additional wealth from taxpayers by pocketing more of their dollars.

While offering nothing in terms of accountability for human rights abuses, Republicans are also showing no willingness to fix or reform the current broken immigration system. Several conservative institutes, including Heritage Action for America, are asking Republicans to provide funds in their bill for 1,000 more immigration judges. Instead, they choose the path of enhanced enforcement actions and incarceration that violate people’s human and civil rights.

Republicans choose inhumanity as if that will deter people suffering from seeking a better life. But history tells us these policies only make the situation worse for citizens and more dangerous for migrants. When we consider that DHS is even targeting what were once unaccompanied children who are now with sponsors (parents or family) for harassment, and like everyone else, Republicans know what they’re doing is harmful, then they're doing it intentionally.

Racism is deep in the Trump administration, as I recently reported for Unicorn Riot.

Note: I contacted many Democratic lawmakers about Republican efforts to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars and have not received a response.

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Arturo is an independent journalist whose work can be found at Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, Latino Rebels, and more. Arturo is also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support his work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.