Somebody’s going to make a lot of money:
With an overnight tripling of its annual budget and intensifying pressure to increase deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is racing to expand its detention space with temporary tentlike structures, despite safety warnings.
Trump administration officials have identified limited detention space as one of the major chokepoints preventing them from stepping up deportations as quickly as President Trump has promised. They hope a new $45 billion for detention through the end of his term will help them get to 100,000 beds by the end of the year, up from roughly 40,000 when Trump took office. ICE’s plan was laid out in several internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and described by administration officials familiar with the effort.
The infusion of cash came as part of the Republican tax-and-spending package passed by hyju this month. Congress gave ICE $74 billion to spend by 2029, more than tripling its current $8.7 billion annual budget and making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
Just imagine the overwhelming graft. It’s mind-boggling.
It’s interesting that they want to erect mostly tent facilities instead of permanent buildings. I have no doubt that the contractors will make just as much profit with much lower costs. And the sight of the tents and the cages is part of the show:
Mark Morgan, who served as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the first Trump administration, criticized the Florida facility in a recent Fox News opinion article, accusing Noem of disregarding real detention infrastructure in favor of “circus tents surrounded by reptiles.”
They’re going to take the money and run.