House Republicans Force Through Billions More for ICE—With Fewer Rules

Donald Trump’s deportation agenda will now have billions of dollars to play with thanks to Republican handiwork.

The House GOP eked out $70 billion in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection Tuesday evening through the budget reconciliation process, bypassing the need for any Democratic support. The Secure America Act’s final vote was 214–212. The president is poised to sign the bill into law Wednesday.

The final draft of the bill grants $38 billion to ICE, $26 billion to CBP, and $5 billion for additional contingency costs that are to be doled out at Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s discretion. It is expected to fund Trump’s aims of one million yearly deportations through the end of his term.

The package is the result of a four-month stand-off between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of regulating the two violent and apparently unbridled agencies. That issue was sparked nearly half a year ago, when federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens during an ICE crackdown in Minnesota: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Liberal lawmakers argued that agents should be mandated to meet the minimum standards expected of other law enforcement agencies, such as requiring them to identify themselves, operate without masks, and obtain judicial warrants before forcing their way onto private property.

That was apparently too great an ask of the Republican caucus, which vehemently opposed the measure and, ultimately, found a way to force the funding package without its Democratic colleagues.

But even this stopgap may not be enough to avert another potential government shutdown: Both parties will need to work together in the coming months to pass government funding measures by a September 30 deadline. Otherwise, they risk stalling federal options mere weeks before a fateful midterm election—a threat that both parties are attempting to use to their advantage.

Yet the massive spending bill is effectively supplemental funding: Last summer, Congress provided nearly $140 billion in immigration enforcement funding for the two agencies via Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act. That virtually tripled ICE’s budget, jumping its appropriations from roughly $9.6 billion to $30 billion (at cost to programs such as Medicaid, which was gutted in the same stroke).

Prior to Trump’s second administration, the annual budgets for both agencies totaled about $17 billion.

The Trump administration is restricting which reporters are allowed to cover June 14’s UFC fight on the White House lawn, giving the mixed martial arts company control over who can get in.

The White House Correspondents’ Association told its members in an email last week that only the White House press pool was allowed, with other outlets barred from the White House grounds unless the UFC gives them press credentials, The Washington Post reports.

“The WHCA has been pushing back on this, but we have been told there will be various Secret Service access points across campus and that the [White House North Lawn] is being used as a staging area for the fighters and UFC filming zone, and the [White House] is standing firm,” WHCA President Weija Jiang wrote in the email.

Jang also said that the UFC was only allowing a “very limited number” of journalists to be on the South Lawn during the fight. Other journalists would have to watch the fight on viewing screens at the Ellipse Park outside the White House or at the JW Marriott hotel. Reporters won’t be able to access their work spaces, the White House briefing room, or “Pebble Beach,” an area on the lawn used for TV appearances during the fight.

“If you have not received a UFC press credential, you will need to utilize other public spaces in the area for any live shots,” Jiang wrote in the email.

The move is very unusual, as the White House has historically handled press credentialing for larger events. But a circus on the White House lawn is also unprecedented, with taxpayers footing the still-untold bill to entertain an audience full of Trump’s friends, the UFC’s guests, and military personnel, who have to pay their own way. The whole thing is an expensive spectacle for Trump’s birthday.

With high gas prices caused by an unnecessary war in the Middle East and a floundering economy, the GOP seems to realize it isn’t going to win the midterm elections on policy issues. Instead, it’s pivoting to the most distasteful plan B possible.

A new ad released Tuesday by the dark-money organization Citizens for Sanity depicts the Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico wearing a dress similar to Julie Andrews’s in The Sound of Music. The ad, first obtained by the right-wing outlet The Daily Caller, is entirely AI-generated. It features the fake Talarico singing the song “My Favorite Things,” though the lyrics have been replaced with crass lines about transgender people.

Citizens for Sanity is closely linked with President Donald Trump and one of his top advisers, white nationalist scumbag Stephen Miller. The group possesses millions in dark money, and has garnered attention for racist advertising backing MAGA candidates.

Citizens for Sanity released ads that ran during the 2022 World Series claiming Latino immigrants were “draining your paychecks, wrecking your schools, ruining your hospitals [and] threatening your family.” Another video speaks about a “radical left-wing love affair with criminals” while displaying images of violent crime committed by Black Americans.

Reporting by The Guardian and Documented revealed that Citizens for Sanity is a part of the Conservative Partnership Institute, the workplace of many former Trump officials, which The New York Times has described as a “nerve center for the right wing.”

Many states across the political spectrum are attempting to regulate or ban the use of AI in political advertisements due to its misleading nature.

The good news is that if this is all that MAGA’s got, Talarico will be just fine. The progressive Democrat’s record is squeaky clean, especially when compared to his Republican rival Ken Paxton’s long history of scandal.

Paxton cheated on his wife, was impeached by the Republican-controlled state House on corruption charges, and helped donors by targeting their enemies as state attorney general. Last month, his office offered a sweetheart plea deal to a repeated child molester that would see the offender spend just one day in jail.

House Speaker Mike Johnson failed Tuesday to convince President Donald Trump to sacrifice his crooked crony in order to save FISA.  

In a meeting at the White House, Trump indicated that he would not nominate a replacement for Bill Pulte, the wildly inexperienced housing official he appointed as acting director of national intelligence.

Pulte’s appointment prompted Democrats to pull their support for a long-term extension of FISA Section 702, which is intended to shield U.S. citizens from the country’s warrantless surveillance program overseas. Seven Senate Republicans also voted against the FISA extension last week.

The key spy power is set to expire Friday, but Trump made it clear that he felt no need to acquiesce to Democrats’ demands, people briefed on the meeting told Politico. 

The Democrats “have taken a hostage,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. In reality, Trump’s reckless actions and total disregard for his own party have put FISA into jeopardy.

Pulte has none of the military or intelligence background necessary to lead ODNI, and has instead made a name for himself by targeting the president’s political enemies and making himself wildly unpopular in the process.

Outgoing Senator Thom Tillis wrote a 15-paragraph letter excoriating his Republican colleagues for bending over backward to the most troubling parts of President Trump’s agenda.

Tillis called out Republicans pushing Trump’s vote-suppressing SAVE Act, saying the party has devolved into a “circular firing squad” over the controversial legislation.

“The real problem I have is that the president (and a few of our members?) forced us to take two more unsuccessful votes for the SAVE Act at the expense of our most vulnerable members in cycle,” Tillis wrote in the letter obtained by Punchbowl News. “The road to holding our majority is already difficult.… We cannot afford any more unforced errors like this between now and November.”

Tillis also railed against Republicans supporting the president’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a $1.776 billion, taxpayer-funded handout for any Trump supporter who felt targeted by the Biden administration.

“We missed an opportunity to remove a political albatross (the 1776 fund) from around the necks of our colleagues who are in cycle,” Tillis said. “Instead, we added weight to that albatross by having 41 members vote to protect the program.”

This letter from Tillis comes just days after he set off Trump after his refusal to confirm Acting Attorney Todd Blanche until he disavows the January 6 insurrectionists.