1w ago

US immigration budget now bigger than most of the world's militaries

www.newsweek.com

ICE budget now bigger than most of the world's militaries

The Senate has passed a bill making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the U.S.'s largest interior law enforcement agency with funding for Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda higher than most of the world's militaries, including Israel's.

Pending its passage in the House of Representatives, Trump's bill could mean a massive increase in ICE funding as part of an immigration enforcement agenda worth $150 billion over four years.

This figure is more than the annual military budget of Italy, which at $30.8 billion, is the world's 16th highest defense spender for this year according to tracker Global Fire Power.

It is also higher than military spending for Israel, ($30 billion), the Netherlands ($27 billion) and Brazil ($26.1 billion).

170 comments

We should quit paying our taxes
- Leave the US. If you have expertise you'll be easily welcomed into most countries, if not, there is are a lot of countries you can still move to that are not police states. Either way you'll stop paying/supporting and supporting US fascism with your work. The immigrants your government is so eager to deport have been through worse.
  
  I would have been gone years ago I just don’t really have the means to leave
  
  The US is an odd duck when it comes to taxes…
  The USA is one of the few countries of the world which levies personal income tax on all its citizens: not only on its residents - citizens or non-citizens - but also on its citizens who do not live in the country. All citizens of the United States are taxed under the same personal income tax system, regardless of whether they live in the country or abroad.
  
  There are too few places to escape to in modern society, given the rise of authoritarian globally. I was planning on Germany until the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Now I find it more prudent to stay in the U.S. and relocate to a low population area. For the handful of dense urban environments in the U.S. there are far more wide open spaces with no people.
  
  I left earlier this year. I'm a tan skinned Latina trans woman immigrant, basically their #1 target. I'm still absolutely terrified for my friends and family.
  I truly hate that I'm still chained to the US via my citizenship. A part of me hopes they denaturalize me so I don't have to pay them shit.
  
  The US is a bit special. It is the only state to require its citizens pay taxes to it on (regular) earnings abroad. Other places only tax earnings made inside their own borders.
  So to truly be off the hook for American taxes as a non-elite, you'll have to renounce your citizenship.
  
  Don't leave. It solves nothing and allows growth of tyranny. Fight back.
- Too late for that now..they'll just take all your money, house, claim you're not a citizen, force you to work for 1/256th of that you earn now and keep the bribe from companies that bought you.
  
  Well either choice leads to imprisonment of some type so I’ll go out blasting rather than perpetuate it
- Then your government will acquire yet more debt. And if everything crumbles down for them, there will be your offspring paying for that debt and their taxes for generations.
  I don't know what's worse, honestly. I just know everyone needs to fight back and resist, and they'll get exhausted fighting everywhere in the world. But it they don't have to fight, they'll just keep doing their shit.
  
  This shit can’t be bankrolled any more. I personally didn’t have offspring because the future is far too bleak to even dream of subjecting another human being to what’s to come. Yeah, we need to start fighting and needed to quite some time ago.
  
  Nice of you to assume I'm gonna have kids.
  
  Offspring? In this economy?
- The government can just print money, they don't actually strictly need your taxes (see MMT). The only actual path is withholding labour and mass protests (with at least a credible threat of violent escalations).
  
  Printing money is how you get hyperinflation. You cant just print money without it flooding the market. If you do that too often, the money becomes worthless.
  
  I haven’t contributed to the economy in any meaningful way and have managed to make money without working any real job since the last place I worked at shuttered in 2020, withholding my labor. I’ve been doing my part. And I’m only one person so there’s not much else I can do unless more people are also doing it.
  
  Or leave. Stop supporting the country in the most literal sense.
That means this is their new military.
Pretty clever if you think if it. They don't try to convince their current one but build one up besides them while starving them of their resources.
- Building a paramilitary beholden to Party-aligned officials as a stopgap until the Party seizes total control of the actual military is boilerplate fascism.
  EDIT: And when they do seize control the military, it usually doesn't end well for the paramilitary.
  
  Who do you think they're going to Merc? Is it Jigsaw?
- It does seem a lot like Schutzstaffel. They’ll need their very own Stasi too.
- Pretty similar to what the Nazis did
- And not beholden to anybody but Trump himself. He can do with it as he please.
There's no way they need all those people and resources if they're only going after illegal immigrants. They're going to start disappearing their other targets too. People of Colour, Democrats, LGBTQ, scientists. Get in line. I hope you're ready for what we know is coming.
First they came for the immigrants...
- It'll be trans people first. Then gays. Eventually blacks. Then democrats.
  
  Seems like right now it's Iranian Americans.
- They skipped the disabled. They've been killing them for centuries.
Is anyone still pretending ICE is about immigration? ICE is Trump's SS, and they just got funding beyond any dictator's wildest dreams. Good luck with your totalitarian police state.
Edit: I want to retract my last sentence. It was callous and stupid. My heart aches for the people who fought against this.
- Don't worry, the gun nuts will stand up against the totalitarian regime.
  
  Its probably time we all become the gun nuts at least while they still let us
  
  The real problem will likely end up being that civilians can't own the firepower the US military/police have, legally. No full auto, no giant drums, no grenades, no missiles, no fighter jets. Even if it were a "well-regulated militia" one fighter/bomber could take them all out, and be marketed on some made up news articles as, "we stopped the terrorists, you're safe now."
  If it really came down to it, such a battle would be very one-sided, so it would have to be more strategic guerilla tactics.
  Oh, and the SS just got a huge budget increase, so that won't help. (As seen above.)
  
  The left need to arm themselves asap
  
  That's how it was supposed to be, until the Right co-opted firearms as an entire personality, and the liberal response was to spread ignorance, miseducation, and fear about them so that their party branding looked different enough.
  So now all the insecure, hateful, scared-of-everybody violence-fantasists are armed, knowledgeable, and stocked.
  And those that would oppose authoritarianism en masse were force-fed "Only cops and the military should be armed and the rest of us should just wish they didn't exist".
  So they're now largely rendered toothless and clawless normies who think flash hiders, rail grips, and black paint make a weapon "more lethal." And don't know what to do with themselves if pickets and law systems don't have an effect.
  Meanwhile the "patriotic" bullies ramble about "freedom" and "small government" whilst simping for their fascist overlords unopposed by any actual threat.
  Like most loud bullies, most are the types that would likely break if met with any actual opposition that could do them harm.
  I don't want to see it come to this, but we need to educate and train ourselves before it's too late. The threat alone might be enough to put them in their place.
  It's very clear nobody is coming to save us from this worsening state of affairs.
  
  Any moment now 🫠
Daily reminder to all ICE agents. By signing up for ICE, you have signed yourself up for a lifetime of fear and criminal liability. There are Nazi concentration camp guards that were tried for their crimes in their 90s. There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Your names are recorded; your deeds are known. And you will face justice for your crimes. And do not count on a blanket pardon saving you. Crimes against humanity are violations of international law that cannot be pardoned.
- fuck legal systems, we all know the next democrat will pardon them or refuse to prosecute them.
  they need to live in fear from decent human beings,
  
  There's not going to be a next Democrat.
  
  Yeah why would the Democrats do this to us??? 🙄
- surely this neck gaiter will protect me from consequences
- That’s something I’ve thought about a lot; these people are going to war with their society, and their and their family’s names and addresses are one data breech away from public knowledge.
  Fortunately the government is protecting them by mass layoffs and encouraging mass retirements from anyone involved in data security.
  My personal bingo card has the families of some these people dropped off in the chihuahaun desert if they piss off the cartels.
- Not all guards of concentration camps or SS members were prosecuted. That was also an unusual situation as the Nazi state and the SS ceased to exist and was occupied for decades.
  No ICE agent will be prosecuted for conducting arrests or executing warrants against illegal immigrants. Once mass torture, inhumane treatment, extralegal executions and such start, it becomes more risky for them.
  We don’t know how bad it will get yet or what comes after. In the best case Trump and republicans lose the next elections. A New Democrat government could simply downsize ICE and only prosecute a handful of bad apples. Remember what happened after Abu Ghraib.
Gestapo. They're Nazi Gestapo. Treat them as they deserve.
- I'd argue they are more like the SS at this point. Consider: the point of the Gestapo was to police the German population and root out internal threats to the Nazis. The SS, on the other hand, were a military branch that were responsible for eradication of the "undesirable elements". I feel like the latter is a more fitting mold for ICE.
  
  The SS had many tasks. One of them was to protect the regime against coups from the army or SA.
  At the beginning the SA also ran concentration camps, the SS took them over soon.
  SS, Gestapo, and regular police were all under Himmler’s command via the Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
  Gestapo was formed from preexisting secret political police forces.
  Trumpism operates differently than Nazism. However Trump needs a loyal oppression infrastructure to build a more authoritarian system. ICE is on its way to enable that.
We’re probably nearing the point where Americans will start trying to get over the border wall and into Mexico.
- Luckily CBP got a nice budget increase so they can prevent anyone from leaving too.
  
  I can totally see this coming.
  The developed world has a population growth problem. Population growth has slowed or reversed in many countries, but the global economy is designed around infinite growth, fed by an infinitely growing pool of workers and customers. Then when they retire they can be taken care of by the infinitely growing population of young people.
  It takes zero imagination to picture this administration forcing "high value human resources" to remain in the country, including putting them on no fly lists. Unfortunately since they are stupid, the brain drain has already started.
- Honestly been looking into it. If things go south enough, I’ve thought about driving down that way. Closer than Canada. I’d have to get through Texas, but teaching math in Mexico City sounds nice.
  
  In Mexico right now. It's beautiful, the people are friendly, cost of living is easily half that of the States, and the food is spectacular.
  
  My brother lived in Mexico City about a decade ago. We're from the US. MC always had a bad rep, but like many things, it was overblown. Worst part of the city is the traffic. Public transport can be a little tight. Gotta get used to whatever lives in the water. Otherwise, I always enjoyed visiting. There was the one time there was an earthquake while I was on the roof of a high-rise, we don't get those in Jersey, but that's a fluke.
- That was the secondary goal, keep people out and in.
- I'd rather live around active cartels at this point.
- I was gonna say. Things might be different if I was in poverty and in central America, but for the rest of us the US just seems like a real awful place to be.
Seems like it’s time to for people to learn about sustained direct action campaigns.
Rev Left Radio had a great interview earlier this year with a member of Palestine Action about their extremely successful direct action campaign against Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit. While the media would have you believe that Palestine Action is an ineffective bunch of clowns, they have already forced the closure of two weapons factories in England and forced Barclays Bank to divest from Elbit through sustained sabotage campaigns. Their incredible success is the actual reason the UK government has named them a terrorist organization, not just for spray painting some planes.
https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=Palestine+action
For legal reasons, I am not encouraging anyone to break any laws.
- Love Rev Left, recommended listening for everyone
Remember when republican bitches about how much we spent on immigration?
What a stupid thing to waste money on.
You could save some of that money and just enforce rules and fines on the people who hire undocumented workers. You'll get money from fines and people will stop hiring those without papers. It's almost like the problem will take care of itself.
Oh wait, that's right. This is all about hurting brown people, breaking up families, throwing sick kids in cages, and making them suffer.
Nevermind.
- It's a bit more than that. ICE can act outside the constitution within 100 miles of the border. We've really only seen this with warrantless searches but that's gonna expand.
  
  Which covers like 2/3 of the US population.
  
  Well, it's nice to know the US is getting what they voted for. LOL
- I’d like to see them crack down on employers who pay substandard wages no matter who they’re trying to exploit. It does not bother me that anyone is hiring illegal immigrants specifically.
  
  But, but it’s not the poor employers fault for taking advantage of illegal immigrants. That would be very unfair to our glorious job creators. /s
- O, we did this...and we decreased our revenue through tax cuts....while we sorta made up for that by fucking over millions of Americans in the process...but...the rich...will be richer...so thats nice.
I’m officially ready to be radicalized.
- I'm this country, not wanting to go to a concentration camp makes you a radical
  
  Not wanting to go to a concentration camp is understandable, especially if you have a high paying job.
  Not wanting OTHER people you've never met to go to concentration camps? Whoaaa there Che, put down that AK-47!
- Same, I'm done
  
  Palantir standing the corner taking notes.
  
  Arm yourselves now, before it's too late.
But we can't afford to feed kids or have medical care or research for cancers and diseases or build housing for everyone.
But we can buy expensive bombs galore to drop on families and build concentration camps.
Neat.
So, when do we all stop paying taxes and stop going to work and bring the whole system crashing down to stop this madness?
- Just waiting for a large group to start a movement to call for the general strike. We all need to agree on when we start otherwise small pockets of strikers will just get fired. We need the collective to start all at once so we protect each other's jobs by being unanimous.
  
  Today would have been a good day to start it. People would mostly be off to get their affairs in order.
  
  https://generalstrikeus.com/
So now they are the biggest millitary and paramilitary spender. Cool.
Its incredible what people will support with actual money and loss of freedom if they are sold racist lies
This is perverse
- Even more so when you remember that the original "we need to get rid of all those immigrants" argument stemmed from migrants costing the country too much money.
  Trillions for deportation. Not one penny for infrastructure or social services.
  
  The ICE budget is free college for everyone like 3 times over.
If you want to put 250m subjects under the boot, you simply need a well-funded American GeStaPo.
- I appreciate a lot of the harassment campaigns around tracking and interfering with ICE. These should continue and escalate.
  This extrajudicial black-bag unmarked-personnel van-kidnapping bullshit should carry unacceptable risk and highly visible negative public optics for those who keep attempting it.
Good, service guarantees citizenship and the way things are going, the Greatestest and Bestest Democraciest Peaciest and Freedomest Country in the Whole Wide Universe will need some ~~cannon fodder~~ highly qualified personnel.
Honest question: why couldn’t the bill be repealed if Dems win the house and senate at midterms?
- If Democrats win the House and Senate at midterms and have a veto proof majority in the Senate (EDIT: or House), then yeah, maybe they could pass a new bill that repeals all these things.
  If they don't have a veto proof majority, then Trump will just veto it.
  (My bad, I had forgotten that it's possible for the House to cancel a presidential veto with a large enough majority also)
  
  The Federal budget is passed annually, and all spending bills must originate in the House.
Well we were the most prosperous country in the world while being racist to the hilt. I'm guessing the GOP thinks that might be the secret sauce.
If you replace the PLA with ICE, its enough budget to invade Taiwan.
also less organized and disciplined, these are also going to be filled with military rejects too, not good enough for the military types.
- Border control has historically hired the least qualified people.
- There are cops, who are bad enough in general and then there are those that couldn't become cops. If you can't make that cut imagine what you can do now that you're Gestapo.
We could probably hand out a third of that as cash if they left voluntarily.
- If the GOP left voluntarily, we could save a LOT more than a third... it's not even comparable
  
  Even better!
More like emigration budget! Amirite?!
Racism pays.
- We're all in danger of being illegal.
  
  If you’re white, you’re alright..
- If you're ~~illegal~~ human, get the hell outta there right now...

170 comments