- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2153
Abolish ICE march. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo: Fibonacci Blue – flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)
President Trump’s signing of the “Big Beautiful Bill” has tripled funding for locking up immigrants to US$45 billion(~AU$70 billion). This is larger than the amount spent on hounding migrants by presidents Obama, Biden, and the first Trump administration, combined. The funding will go to private prison contractors to double the United States migrant lock-up capacity. Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, says: “We are seeing a wholesale expansion of ICE detention centres.”
ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detained 56,000 people in June, the highest number since the first Trump administration. The US immigrant detention system is already the largest in the world. Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the funding will pay for additional detention beds and ICE agents. As ICE has been given increased capacity to arrest undocumented immigrants, it requires doubling the detention capacity to 100,000 beds.
The immigrant detention network consists of dozens of private contractor detention centres and dozens of county jails. Up till now these centres mostly held border crossers deemed a flight risk or migrants charged with a crime. As of June, one-third of ICE detainees have never been charged with a criminal offense. According to Austin Kocher, research assistant professor at Syracuse University, 40 per cent of ICE detainees have no criminal charges and only 8.4 per cent have convictions for violent crimes. Trump has announced he is arresting all the “violent criminals.”
The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee says ICE’s spending had surpassed the agency’s budget by US$1 billion. ICE is expanding contracts to at least nine facilities owned by the Geo Group or CoreCivic, the two largest detention contractors. These companies have at least fourteen additional unused prisons, which could be repurposed to hold thousands of detainees across various states. ICE also has contracts with companies housing immigrants in makeshift tents.
Masked ICE agents, dressed in military gear and driving in unmarked cars, do not need to give their names during arrests and it is illegal for the police to assist those being arrested. The lack of identification worn by ICE agents makes them appear like kidnappers. In Los Angeles, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the police have no authority to interfere with federal operations performed by ICE. In reaction to this, a motion by the Los Angeles City Council would limit the LAPD’s “support to agencies performing immigration enforcement.”
Masked ICE agents have been filmed: accosting people in public places; smashing car windows, dragging people into unmarked vehicles; and dragging detainees from court houses and churches. ICE has provoked mass protests by using flash bangs in restaurant raids and violently arresting law-abiding members of the public. In response the Trump administration sent in hundreds of marines to California and Florida to assist ICE agents.
ICE appears to act without any legal consequences. On 12 June Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was forcibly thrown to the floor, handcuffed and removed during a Homeland Security Secretary press conference held by secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem, while clearly identifying himself and shouting, “I have questions for the secretary!” On 18 June New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate, Brad Lerner, was arrested outside a federal immigration court. His demands to see a judicial warrant were ignored.
White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, ignoring the protests, has described the expansion of ICE as “the largest mass deportation operation in history and a secure … border.”
