As published in the Immigration Daily on June 10, 2026
What do you do with $170 billion given to you for immigration enforcement under the Big Beautiful Bill in 2025? What do you do with the additional $70 billion on its way to completely fund ICE through Donald Trump’s second term in office after passing the critical Senate vote last week? The answer is to spend it on a mass deportation program not bounded by whether the deportees have criminal records nor restricted by the number of equities that they may have, e.g. long-term residence, steady jobs, contributions to the community, history of supporting family, familial ties to US citizens or permanent residents, etc. They will undoubtedly come after someone you know and like or a relative of that person.
What is holding up the process now? Possibly the backlash against ICE for its violent tactics lighting up the national media and killings of Americans Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, but most probably concern and anxiety over the midterm elections and how scenes of chaos, mass arrests and deportations will affect the votes of Independents.
If the Supreme Court holds in favor of the Administration on the birthright citizenship issue, estimates are that 100 million persons could be deported. That would rip the roof right off of this country and weaken America immeasurably. Administration officials are contemplating deporting 100 million including almost 50 million US-born citizens. DHS posted an image of a sunny unpopulated beach with a vintage 1970s car in December with a caption that this would be the peace of a country no longer besieged by the Third World after 100 million deportations https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2006472108222853298 . Greg Bovino, the border patrol chief who retired after Minnesota, said that while leading border patrol’s interior operations, he had drafted a plan to deport 100 million people and when he reiterated his call for 100 million deportations at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March 2026, GOP political candidates echoed his call. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-isnt-just-after-undocumented Although the Solicitor General told the Supreme Court that Trump’s order would only apply prospectively to children born after it was signed, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that by the logic of his position, this president or the next president or Congress or someone else could decide it shouldn’t be prospective and then there would be nothing limiting that, according to the Solicitor General’s theory.
The White House appears to be preparing Americans for the mass deportations by dehumanizing undocumented immigrants in a May 28, 2026, video opening up in green lettering against a black background akin to a science fiction movie involving aliens, “They Walk Among Us”, and quickly moving on that the aliens are illegal aliens who should not be here and should be deported. “Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives. They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences… Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society… President Trump was the first to call out the real danger Aliens pose to every American family, every community, and the future of our nation.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/aliens/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email . The video concludes with a number counter for “Encounters” presently over 3 million and an alien arrest map of those caught in various parts of the country.
The Washington Post reported that White House officials and House Republican leaders advised Republican members to avoid emphasizing the phrase “mass deportations” and instead focus on deporting violent criminals and public-safety threats. The report stated that this advice was given specifically in the context of the upcoming midterm elections. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/10/trump-gop-deportations-midterms/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. In the March 2026 Republican congressional retreat in Doral, Florida, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Republican Lisa McLain (R-Michigan), chair of the House Republican conference, instructed congressional members to avoid talking about sweeping deportations of undocumented and instead to focus only on deportations of violent criminals.
Republicans know that mass deportation scenes could lose them the midterms. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that aggressive deportation policies could create political problems for Republicans in the midterms, particularly among independents. According to the poll, a majority of Americans—and an even larger share of independents—said they were less likely to support candidates associated with the administration’s deportation approach. Support for the administration’s handling of immigration reportedly declined compared to earlier in the term. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-deportation-push-could-cost-republicans-midterm-elections-reutersipsos-2026-04-22/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
The watchword is that people should not be lulled into thinking that the increased rhetoric of immigration enforcement against criminals and public safety threats and not others will hold after the elections. There is too much at stake for the President and his MAGA movement to not strike sharply at the hearts of immigrants and even birthright Americans if given the support of the Supreme Court. $240 billion is a lot of money that has to go somewhere, and particular areas for spending include constructing many more mass detention/deportation camps, purchasing a fleet of deportation planes, paying other countries exorbitant amounts to accept deportees that cannot be returned to their home countries, improving logistics in detaining and transporting detainees, mass hiring of ICE personnel, purchasing weapons, riot gear, ground transportation, and obtaining the newest state-of-the-art invasive AI products which can and already have been used against Americans.
The future is being written now, and it appears increasingly grim for a large number of those that we call our family members, neighbors and friends.
