Republicans Now Want to Track Immigrants Wherever They Go

The GOP’s new Homeland Security funding bill would require “all non-detained migrants” to wear GPS tracking devices, a demoralizing “alternative to detention” that is part of the Trump administration’s continuing immigration crackdown, according to Migrant Insider.

“Non-detained” includes asylum-seekers and even students. Tracking millions of innocent people like endangered animals will be a tall task, a challenge that will likely go to another seedy private surveillance corporation.

This is not the first time DHS and ICE have used tracking devices on nondetained immigrants. Last year, ICE issued 3,000 wrist-worn “Veri-Watches” to keep constant tabs on asylum-seekers.

“These wrist-worn GPS monitoring devices would supplement existing [alternative-to-detention] capabilities for noncitizens who qualify for the non-detained docket in a less obtrusive manner, increasing compliance for participants moving through the immigration process,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations executive associate director Corey Price said in 2023 when announcing the tracking program.

Those wrist-worn trackers resembled smart watches without any personal use capabilities. ICE agents could perform live location monitoring, facial recognition, and messaging. It’s likely that this most recent development will use similar technologies, if not the same.

This draconian, dehumanizing invasion of privacy isn’t the only alarming development in this funding cycle. The appropriations bill will also include yet another ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion funding at DHS and $4.4 billion for ICE custody operations, and it bans local law enforcement from decreasing their 287(g) agreements with ICE. This bill is a dream come true for the likes of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and border czar Tom Homan. It is expected to pass through the House and the Senate.

Just eight days out from the Senate GOP’s self-imposed (read: Donald Trump–imposed) July 4 deadline to pass the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Senate parliamentarian has dealt a blow to the sweeping plan, which cuts taxes for corporations and the rich and pays for it with massive slashes to entitlement programs, most notably Medicaid.

As Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough gives the proposed budget reconciliation a “Byrd bath”—so called because it winnows out nonbudgetary provisions, under what’s known as the Byrd Rule—she has scrubbed the bill of some of its grime.

According to a Thursday morning press release from the Senate Budget Committee ranking member and Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, the Senate parliamentarian has spiked numerous provisions, which will now have to surmount a 60-vote hurdle in order to remain in the bill as written—something that has zero chance of happening.

These nixed provisions would have significantly restricted health care access for individuals who are not citizens and limited states’ ability to administer Medicaid. They included bans on federal funding for Medicaid for certain groups—such as for those whose citizenship status was not immediately verified and people seeking gender-affirming care. Others would have limited states’ ability to tax health care providers to fund Medicaid and revoked Medicare eligibility for refugees, asylum-seekers, and people with temporary protected status.

With these provisions and others having gotten the chopping block—and more potentially on the way—Republican lawmakers are none too pleased.

“How is it that an unelected swamp bureaucrat, who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago, gets to decide what can and cannot go in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill?” tweeted Representative Greg Steube, who advocated for Vice President JD Vance to overrule MacDonough in a message retweeted by fellow GOP Representative Andy Biggs. Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville decried “the WOKE Senate Parliamentarian” along similar lines.

Yesterday, Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew, lamenting that MacDonough “has already blocked major parts of House Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill,” tweeted, “It doesn’t have to be this way. The Republicans senators are not required to adhere to anything she says.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are applauding the setback to Trump’s agenda. “Republicans are scrambling to rewrite parts of this bill to continue advancing their families lose, and billionaires win agenda,” said Merkley, “but Democrats stand ready to fully scrutinize any changes and ensure the Byrd Rule is enforced.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday continued his massive public meltdown about the leaked Pentagon report that undermined Donald Trump’s claims about the strikes on Iran.

Hegseth opened the press conference by accusing reporters of “hunting for scandals,” causing them to “miss historic moments.”

“How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don’t know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox?” Hegseth demanded.

He later sniped at reporters that “it’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump.” “Let’s take half-truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind,” he ranted.

While taking questions, Hegseth snapped at Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin while struggling to dodge a question about Fordo, one of Iran’s most important nuclear enrichment sites, which Hegseth claimed had been completely destroyed by the U.S. strike last week.

“Do you have certainty that all of the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordo mountain?” asked Griffin. “Because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain that none of the highly enriched uranium was moved?”

CNN reported that two sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s early assessment said that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium had not been destroyed, and another source said that it had been moved out of the sites ahead of the U.S. strikes.

“Of course we’re watching every single aspect,” Hegseth said. “But Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally.”

Griffin, who is Fox’s chief national security correspondent at the Pentagon, looked taken aback. She explained that she’d been at the Pentagon Saturday night, where she’d accurately reported on the B-2 bombers and the ventilation shaft, which had been likely an entrance for a “bunker buster” bomb at Fordo.

“So I take issue with that,” Griffin concluded.

Hegseth attacked another reporter who asked about CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s statement Wednesday that “new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”

“Don’t you think we need to see that?” asked the second reporter.

“Do you have a top secret clearance, sir?” Hegseth snipped.

“Eventually, the American public is going to want to see it,” the reporter replied.

Hegseth practically begged reporters to stop covering the leaked assessment, arguing that there were more patriotic things to be doing.

“We’re urging caution about premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications trying to make something look bad. How about we take a beat? Recognize first the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell their stories, celebrate that. Wave an American flag. Be proud of what we accomplished,” he said.

Trump applauded Hegseth in a post on Truth Social. “One of the greatest, most professional, and most ‘confirming’ News Conferences I have ever seen! The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!” Trump wrote.

The U.S. president is calling for the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

In a rambling, 349-word Truth Social post Wednesday night, Donald Trump claimed that the Israeli leader shouldn’t have to face the music for alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, since “there is nobody in Israel’s History that fought harder or more competently” than Netanyahu. Instead, he wrote, the trial should be “CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY.”

“I was shocked to hear that the State of Israel, which has just had one of its Greatest Moments in History, and is strongly led by Bibi Netanyahu, is continuing its ridiculous Witch Hunt against their Great War Time Prime Minister!” Trump wrote, referring to Netanyahu as a “warrior.” “Bibi and I just went through HELL together, fighting a very tough and brilliant longtime enemy of Israel, Iran, and Bibi could not have been better, sharper, or stronger in his LOVE for the incredible Holy Land.”

Trump used the space to accuse Iran of being on the brink of nuclear armament, claiming that Netanyahu had conducted “a complete elimination of potentially one of the biggest and most powerful Nuclear Weapons anywhere in the World, and it was going to happen, SOON!”

“Despite all of this, I just learned that Bibi has been summoned to Court on Monday for the continuation of this long running, (He has been going through this ‘Horror Show’ since May of 2020—Unheard of! This is the first time a sitting Israeli Prime Minister has ever been on trial.), politically motivated case, ‘concerning cigars, a Bugs Bunny doll, and numerous other unfair charges’ in order to do him great harm,” Trump continued. “Such a WITCH HUNT, for a man who has given so much, is unthinkable to me.”

Netanyahu appeared to appreciate the sentiment, thanking Trump in a separate post “for your moving support for me and your tremendous support for Israel.” But other Israeli politicians didn’t take kindly to the intervention: Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that Trump should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.

Trump’s casual disregard for the rule of law should come as no surprise considering his own history facing the court system. Trump has been sued countless times, but has grabbed the national spotlight over the last few years when he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was convicted as a felon for falsifying records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, when he was ordered to pay out hundreds of millions for defrauding U.S. banks, and when he was charged in connection to two separate conspiracies to unroot the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Those all dramatically came to a close when Trump was inaugurated on January 20, in light of a law preventing sitting presidents from being charged with a crime.