$100 billion for ICE just asks for waste, fraud, abuse

By Patricia Lopez / Bloomberg Opinion

One of the biggest spending items in the Republican budget bill has hardly gotten any attention: $170 billion for an unprecedented crackdown on immigration. By some calculations, it would make the annual budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement larger than Israel’s entire defense budget.

The supplemental funds — to be spent over the next four years — would leave vital aspects of immigration reform unaddressed. But the funding is essential to President Trump’s mass deportation plans. Vice President J.D. Vance left little doubt of that when he posted on social media, “Everything else — the [Congressional Budget Office] score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

Yet according to Priorities USA, a progressive group that conducted polling on the bill in June, less than 2 percent of voters had heard of the tax bill’s immigration provisions.

The reality is that most Americans reject the harshness of mass deportations and support green cards and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who can meet the requirements.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-100-billion-for-ice-just-asks-for-waste-fraud-abuse/