By David Sole
Most media coverage has directed public attention to the cuts in Medicaid and Medicare in Trump’s new budget proposal. This is certainly a serious concern to poor and working people across the United States. But the public should also be alarmed at the massive spending hikes that continue Trump’s course to a repressive police state.
The House of Representatives passed a budget bill on May 22 that provides “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with over $160 billion in new border and immigration enforcement resources over the next four and a half years..” It will “double the current budgets of DHS’s main border and migration enforcement agencies.”
It will plow $46.5 billion into hundreds of miles of border walls (701 miles), river barriers (900 miles), secondary barriers (629 miles) and vehicle/pedestrian barriers (141 miles). Another $45 billion will go to more detention centers for 100,000 people. To hire 10,000 new ICE agents, 3,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 more Customs and Border Protection agents Trump will spend $31.2 billion more.
These agencies, along with expanded DHS patrols are already militarizing the border and terrorizing people on the streets of cities in every state. Detention inside the U.S. is giving way to widespread kidnapping of migrants, who are then being shipped to foreign shores with no chance to come before a judge. This also includes U.S. citizens swept up in the hysteria.
To put these numbers in perspective, ICE’s detention budget would go from $3.4 billion to the staggering sum of $45 billion! ICE’s transportation budget will go from $721 million to $14.4 billion.
These expenditures should be viewed along with the huge increase to military spending being proposed. The “Defense” budget will eat up $1.01 trillion (million million), the largest ever in U.S. history and a 13% increase from last year. Trump claims that his “Golden Dome” missile defense system proposal will cost $175 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office says it might be as high as $542 billion over 20 years. More worrisome is the fact that building a continental missile defense network will provoke an arms race with Russia and China. They will see the “Golden Dome” as a threat where the U.S. can launch a “first strike” attack with little fear of retaliation.
None should believe that Trump and Co. will be content to just target undocumented workers. The president has repeatedly talked about crushing his political opponents and protesters. His April 28, 2025 Executive Order includes authorization to put U.S. troops into U.S. cities to “fight crime,” something specifically against federal law. Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, publicly called for suspension of the “right to habeas corpus” in the U.S.
These policies and expenditures are further indications that President Trump and his gang are fully prepared to carry out a military coup as he gets more frustrated with growing opposition to his policies coming from the judicial branch and people in the streets.
Discussions should begin now by unions and community groups on how to initiate a General Strike as the last line of defense to protect our hard-won rights. A national campaign should also be directed toward our military personnel and national guard members to be prepared to disobey illegal orders.
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