Trump’s Big Bill gives him $ to create an ICE army and build concentration camps

But we will still prevail!

Donald Trump is not hiding his fascist dreams. In just the past 24 hours, the convicted felon who incited the Jan. 6 terrorist attack did the following:

1. Threatened to deport U.S. citizens “born in our country” who he defines as “bad people,” telling reporters: “I think we ought to get them the hell out of here!”

2. Vowed to investigate New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani—who came to the United States at seven with his parents—to see if he’s in the United State “illegally.” He then gleefully threatened to arrest Mamdani if he stands in the way of deporting people, “We’ll have to arrest him.”

3. He remarked that he would look into whether Elon Musk was legally in the United States, stating, “DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

4. He joyfully visited the new fascist spectacle known as the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center/penal colony in the Florida Everglades. While there, he vowed to build even more such camps: “Well, I think we’d like to see them in many states, really, many states.” He also cruelly “joked” about migrants being eaten by alligators.

5. Trump along with DHS Secretary Noem threatened to criminally prosecute CNN reporters. Trump stated CNN journalists, “may be prosecuted for having given false reports on the attack in Iran.” While Noem called for criminal charges against CNN for reporting on a new app that allows users to track and try to avoid ICE agents.

In addition, we learned yesterday that Trump’s DOJ is now invoking a tactic from the McCarthy era of the 1950’s by “prioritizing” denaturalization of American citizens. The DOJ memo lays out 10 grounds to strip naturalized US citizens of their citizenship--from those who commit certain serious crimes to those the Trump regime claims “pose a potential danger to national security.”

Even more alarming is the tenth reason cited in the memo, “Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.” That is ripe for abuse by Trump. And this process will all take place in civil court where a person has no right to counsel and the burden of proof for the Trump regime to win is much lower than criminal court.

As if that was not alarming enough, Trump’s Big Billionaires bill that passed the Senate will provide Trump with billions to build a massive ICE army and erect detention centers across the nation. This immoral bill that strips health coverage from 17 million Americans, will provide Trump with $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement-related funding. This level of funding is jaw dropping in terms of how much money is allocated above current levels.

ICE’s current annual budget is around $10 billion. But under the version of the bill that passed the Senate, the agency would receive an infusion of more than $100 billion through 2029. The agency, which currently has about 6,000 deportation officers, would receive billions of dollars more to hire an additional 10,000 new ICE agents.

Yep, Trump’s ICE headed by Tom Homan--who recently showed no concern over the death of 75 year-old grandfather who died in ICE custody—will soon have thousands of more troops at his disposal.

In addition, the bill provides $45 billion for new detention facilities--a 265 percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. By comparison, the U.S. spent about $8 billion a year on the Bureau of Prisons.

Simply put, Trump can now build an army of ICE agents loyal to him who will then do as directed to fill these concentration camps. And “concentration camps” is the correct term of what Trump wants because that is defined as detention centers where people are imprisoned without judicial review. We have all seen Trump and Stephen Miller slam the idea of “due process” for any person they claim is a migrant or even a green card holder who espouses political views they don’t approve.

Keep in mind—as CNN recently reported—less than 10% of the people in ICE custody under Trump were convicted of serious crimes like murder, assault, rape or robbery. Rather, more than 75% had no criminal convictions at all. That means ICE is filling these death camps not with the “worst of the worst” but instead often arresting people like 64 year-old “Donna” Kashanian who has lived in the US for 47 years, was married to a US citizen, had no criminal record, was the mother of US citizens and had checked in annually with ICE as required. Since ICE knew where she was because of her check-ins, she was easy to grab—and they did just that arresting her while she gardening in her yard.

Does anyone reading this not believe Trump would use his new ICE army to round up American citizens he declares to be “bad people”? Does anyone doubt that the man who pardoned the Jan. 6 terrorists who brutally beat up police officers in his name would imprison critics in concentration camps to make an example of them in order to intimidate others into silence? Do you really trust this GOP Supreme Court to protect your rights?!

Taking a step a back for a moment. Does any of this sound like the United States of America that you know? Have you ever heard of a President respond to critics by threatening to arrest them? Openly talking about stripping critics of citizenship and deporting them? (Think of the climate Trump is nurturing among his MAGA base of what is acceptable in dealing with those who oppose Trump.) This is what fascism looks like—and that is what we are confronted with as a people.

Yet with all this darkness, there is still a bright ray of hope ahead and that is the 2025 and especially the 2026 elections. Despite what social media claimed, there is nothing in the big bill that empowers Trump or the GOP to cancel the 2026 midterms. But as we get closer, Trump will become even more dangerous and desperate to hold on to power. We need to be ready for that.

Trump like all fascists wants to overwhelm us so that we will be paralyzed with fear. But he doesn’t get real Americans. We won’t bow to a king. Instead, as we saw a few weeks ago, we will come out in the millions to oppose one.

This July 4th marks the 249 anniversary of our nation’s independence from a mad king. Our independence from the current wannabe mad king is coming—that is, as long as we stay engaged in the fight!

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