The Biggest Story in Deportation News
Spoiler: It's still the funding.
WASHINGTON — Tucked inside Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill”—a budget reconciliation package moving through Congress that would put deportation and detention on steroids—House Republicans quietly slipped in two more betrayals this week that cut to the bone of migrant life in America.
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The first: a 5% excise tax on remittances. That’s money sent by immigrants to help family members survive in Guatemala, El Salvador, the Philippines, Haiti—millions wired home each week from restaurant backrooms, construction sites, and cleaning jobs. Under the GOP plan, that money gets taxed.
The second: a provision targeting protected status for Afghan war allies—the same interpreters, drivers, and fixers who risked their lives to help American troops during the longest war in U.S. history. The betrayal is so blatant it barely needs commentary.
These additions came during a markup by the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, one of five now hacking apart and weaponizing the reconciliation bill that already includes:
$45 billion for ICE detention, boosting capacity to 100,000 beds—a 364% increase.
$14.4 billion for deportation operations.
$46.5 billion for Trump’s border wall.
$8 billion to hire new ICE agents.
$5 billion to deploy the military to the border.
You can practically smell the jackpot from here. Speaker Mike Johnson and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller are driving this train—straight through budget reconciliation, a parliamentary backdoor that allows passage with just 51 votes in the Senate. No filibuster. No floor debate. Just raw power.
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The only person who might throw a wrench in the gears is Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough. In 2021, she blocked Democrats from including a citizenship path for Dreamers in their reconciliation package. Whether she’ll do the same to the GOP’s enforcement bonanza remains an open question.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) didn’t sound too worried. “It’s gonna depend on how things go,” he told me last month with a shrug.
MY TAKE: This isn’t just another budget fight. It’s a blueprint for a permanent deportation state, funded to the teeth and running on autopilot. The remittance tax and Afghan betrayal are just the appetizer. The main course is a trillion-dollar system that treats migration like a threat and migrants like leverage.
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How is this enforced? At the level of banks? What do they consider a "remittance"? Tons of people send money overseas, for tons of reasons. Besides being evil, this is so impractical and just fucking dumb.
Watch the GOP fire McDonough if she stands in their way.