Congress

Trump’s deportation promise hinges on GOP delivering megabill

Published

1 year ago

May 5, 2025

President Donald Trump’s ability to accelerate his lagging deportations agenda hinges on congressional Republicans figuring out what they’re going to cut to pay for it.

White House border czar Tom Homan has pleaded with GOP lawmakers for more money for months as the White House has struggled to launch the mass deportation campaign the president promised. Top administration officials have been in close touch with Blue Light News about the figures they need to ramp up removals.

Republicans appear ready to give the White House more than officials have asked for. The House and Senate proposals would allow the committees that oversee immigration to spend between $200 billion and $350 billion — as Homan has projected the deportation effort would cost $86 billion to execute.

Republicans agree with the idea of plowing billions into the president’s No. 1 campaign pledge. But that money is out of reach, as lawmakers struggle to agree on cuts to pay for the huge increase in spending plus the extension of the tax breaks Trump signed into law during his last term.

A Department of Homeland Security memo last month warned House and Senate Republicans that failure to pass the legislation would “undo all the Trump Administration’s Massive Successes.” And the president’s budget outline released Friday further underscored where the White House is pressuring lawmakers to land: Trump called for a 65 percent increase in funding for border security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as he’s seeking major cuts across the federal government.

“It’s No. 1 for those guys … what we want is what they want,” said House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.). “We all want to get this done … we’re going full speed.”

The funding would turbocharge ICE with an unprecedented influx of cash, allowing the Trump administration to hire thousands of more agents and expand detention capacity across the country. It would also flow to private contractors as the Trump administration looks to outsource some of the deportation process by helping track down migrants and detaining them in for-profit detention facilities.

Trump’s vow to quickly remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the country has faced a number of roadblocks. The administration has run up against a bogged-down immigration court system as well as challenges with detention space and staffing, spreading ICE agents thin as they work to deport 1 million undocumented immigrants this year — four times as many as last year.

“We should understand that until they have that money and can start to spend that money, no one should really think that they can start raising the deportation numbers that much,” said Michael Kagan, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Immigration Clinic. “They need that money, and that is the first step for expanding detention space.”

The House GOP proposal recommends tens of billions of dollars for detention facilities and the hiring and retention of immigration enforcement personnel — paving the way for the kind of historic crackdown immigration hardliners have long pushed for.

“You’re going to be able to build a wall. You’re going to have detention facilities, deportation, all of that stuff,” said Michael Hough, director of federal relations at NumbersUSA, a group that works to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. “This would be huge, historic.”

ICE says it has deported roughly 65,700 immigrants since Trump took office, though the deportation numbers have been questioned by experts. The agency has reported 66,500 arrests since January, claiming that three of four were undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

So far this year, the Trump administration’s monthly deportation pace has been lower than that of the Biden administration at the same time last year. That’s in part because it’s easier to deport people arrested at the border than those apprehended inside the country, and the number of people crossing the border has continued to plummet since Trump took office.

“They’ve had tremendous success in securing the border. We just want to make sure they can continue to do that,” said House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

But more money won’t resolve all of Trump’s challenges — and “arresting and detaining more people” does not automatically result in more removals, said Deborah Fleischaker, former acting chief of staff for ICE during the Biden administration. Home countries of many migrants — especially those who committed crimes — don’t always want to take them back. That’s part of the reason the Trump administration has entered a deal with El Salvador to accept deportees from the U.S. and is now in talks with other countries in addition.

It also takes time and resources to hire, vet and train more agents, and new detention facilities won’t be up and running overnight. The president’s rhetoric has spurred fear across communities, with many immigrants seeking legal aid and going into hiding.

“We’re a long ways away from 100,000 beds and a million removals. A million removals, that’s like 30,000 removals a week,” said an ICE official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. During “the previous three administrations, the removal stats were juiced because of all the people crossing the border. A million removals from the interior requires a million arrests. And now everyone is actively hiding and thwarting us.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has set an ambitious July 4 deadline for the passage of the GOP megabill, which they hope to enact via fast-track budget procedures that will allow them to sidestep a Democratic filibuster. A number of committees are still hammering out their plans, including politically complicated cuts to Medicaid, and the House and Senate will need to reach a consensus on their proposals.

The House Judiciary Committee proposed raising revenue via a host of new fees on those who apply through the legal immigration system, including a first-of-its-kind minimum $1,000 fee for asylum seekers and $3,500 fee for sponsors of unaccompanied children.

Democrats, for their part, have virtually no means to block the bill’s passage, assuming the GOP can stay aligned.

But unlike Trump’s first term, during which a border wall funding fight prompted the longest-ever government shutdown, Democrats have so far not focused on the immigration and border provisions in their attacks on the bill. Instead they are spotlighting the potential cuts to government programs. During a committee markup, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee were largely silent about the tens of billions of dollars the committee’s bill allocates for the border wall system.

Congress

Paxton reports $18M quarterly fundraising haul

Published

3 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.

Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.

Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.

“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.

The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.

Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”

Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.

Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”

Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.

Congress

Where Warnock is visiting in the final midterms sprint

Published

10 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.

The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.

First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).

“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”

Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Dems split on probing Trump corporate allies

Published

11 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.

The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.

“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.

“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.

Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.

“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.

Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.

The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.

Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.

“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.

Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.

“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.

What else we’re watching:

— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.

— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.

Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.