Donald Trump's draconian immigration policies are to get a massive injection of cash thanks to the omnibus budget bill that the president signed into law on July 4. The bill includes over $170 billion in funding for new detention centers, deportation operations, border wall construction, and other anti-immigration initiatives. While this outlay is to be spread out over five years, critics point out that it surpasses the annual military budgets of any country on Earth except for the US and China. It is also more than four times the World Food Program's estimate of the yearly sum needed to end global hunger by 2030. (TNH, NYT, AIC, HT)

The bill, which narrowly passed in the House July 3 with no Democratic support but only two no votes from Republicans, represents a massive shift of funds from basic social programs such as Medicare to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose budget will now overshadow that of the FBI. The ICE detention budget is to now outstrip that of the federal Bureau of Prisons, aiming at capacity to hold over 100,000 detainees. The bill passed the Senate July 1, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. (The Guardian, FactCheck, PBS)

The White House is meanwhile sending 200 Marines to Florida to assist ICE officers, according to the US Northern Command. Some 70 Florida National Guard troops have already been deployed to the newly built remote state-run immigration detention site deep in the Everglades officially dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," which Trump personally visited July 1. Both Florida and US officials have made much of the fact that the swamps surrounding the camp on a disused airstrip are infested with alligators. The federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, even tweeted an AI-generated image of a phalanx of alligators wearing ICE caps outside a concentration camp. 

Pentagon troops, already deployed to California, are also to be mobilized to back up ICE in Louisiana and Texas. (Military.com, ABC, Florida Phoenix, NewsHour)