ICE gets huge cash injection as mass deportation effort ramps up

Washington DC - US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is set to receive a historic cash injection from Washington in a bid to aid President Donald Trump's brutal mass deportation campaign.

President Donald Trump's administration will give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement a ton more money to assist in its mass deportation effort.
President Donald Trump's administration will give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement a ton more money to assist in its mass deportation effort.  © AFP/Blake Fagan

ICE is set to receive an injection of about $75 billion in funding in Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," effectively tripling the agency's budget and putting it above the funding levels of some major countries' entire military.

The money will be spent on expanding detention centers for migrants and boosting the agency's ability to enact the Trump administration's aggressive deportation regime by hiring more ICE agents.

Under Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan, ICE intends to have at least 100,000 immigration detention beds available by the end of 2025, up from the 41,000 beds that had been funded under previous budgets.

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Some of these beds will be in new permanent buildings, but others will be in temporary structures and tents.

An increase in the number of border agents and the resources available to immigration enforcement is also meant to help Washington plow towards its target of 3000 daily migrant arrests, which it has so far failed to meet.

Money is also being directed towards finishing the construction of Trump's infamous border wall, a legacy from his first term in office.

ICE handed "blank check" to enact Trump's aggressive immigration agenda

Speaking to CNN, a former Homeland Security official warned that by signing the spending bill into law, Trump effectively handed a "blank check" to ICE for whatever it wants to have and do.

The former official warned that "there's a lot of brain drain going on" as ICE intensifies its operations.

"We're going to come harder and faster," Noem said earlier in July. "We're going to take these criminals down with even more strength than we ever have before."

Cover photo: AFP/Blake Fagan

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