The Dictatorship

This May Day, stand in solidarity with the workers Trump’s trying to deport

Published

1 month ago

May 1, 2026

May. 1, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

ByRep. Delia RamirezandAndy Kang

As workers prepare to march in the streets on May Day, congressional Republicans are moving to use a budget reconciliation process to add $70 billion in new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. No legitimate reform is attached. No oversight is required. And many of the people in the crosshairs of this expanded deportation machine are among the workers we march for on May Day.

This term, the Trump administration restarted worksite raids — enforcement actions the Biden administration had mostly paused — and aimed those raids at workers, not the employers exploiting them. Indeed, companies exploiting such workers are almost never held accountable. Thus, workers who fear deportation don’t report wage theft. They don’t report unsafe conditions. They don’t organize. Research on previous enforcement surges found that when immigration raids increase, the willingness of workers to make workplace injury complaints falls, and minimum wage violations rise — not only among immigrant workers but also among everyone working alongside them. The suppression spreads. The terror and its associated chilling effect are not a side effect; it’s the intended effect.

This term, the Trump administration restarted worksite raids and aimed those raids at workers, not the employers exploiting them.

The $70 billion request is outrageous if for no other reason than we have already seen what the Trump administration does when it has unlimited resources and no accountability: masked agents smashing car windows and grabbing parents in front of their children. The administration wants no guardrails against racial profiling. It wants no accountability for the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Prettitwo U.S. citizens shot dead during this year’s federal paramilitary surge in Minnesota. Republicans want to give ICE billions of dollars more even as it makes no effort to rein in White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s mass deportation operation.

All the reasons above are why Rep. Delia Ramirez helped introduce the Melt ICE Actand they’re why we should see this May Day as not just another protest but as a reckoning. The bill would begin dismantling Trump’s expanded deportation machine. Not reform it. Not alter who oversees it. Dismantle it. Because the problem is not that ICE lacks accountability. It’s that an agency with so much money, so much power and so little oversight is designed for impunity. ICE is designed to be a vehicle for terror, not safety.

ICE’s total funding is already larger than the combined budgets of the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals. The administration has requested enough new funding to support the removal of one million people per year. That is not security. The administration is pushing for a domestic enforcement apparatus operating at a scale our country has never attempted, and $70 billion more would lock in such outrageous and disproportionate spending for three more years.

To give the funding cover, Republicans will begin to advocate for any number of “immigration reform” bills that fail to meet the moment. Don’t be fooled. Republican efforts to advance these bills are not earnest. They are designed to give members facing competitive races something to point to while big corporations, profiteers and private interests rake in record profits from building out the enforcement machinery and exploiting workers fearing deportation. You fund the machine to hurt immigrants. You hold a press conference about reform to lie to workers.

On May Day, FIRM members in more than 30 states will march alongside labor unions and community organizations that understand what is at stake. They are marching while Republicans’ additional $70 billion hangs over their heads. They are marching because the same Congress that funds the raids and cuts working people’s programs and services also refuses to pass a real pathway to citizenship, which would give workers the legal standing to report abuse, organize and participate fully in the economy.

A true pathway to citizenship advanced in bills like the American Dream and Promise Act and the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929paired with the Melt ICE Act, is what would actually bring about change — not performative bills that are designed to fail. And not press conferences timed to election cycles. We need legislation that meets the scale of what is being built against immigrant communities and starts tearing it down. To pass immigration reform that truly meets the moment will require the power of the people and legislation endorsed by people-powered movements.

Immigrant workers helped build our country. They are still building our country. This May Day, they are marching for the right to stay in it, and we are introducing legislation to make sure they can.

Rep. Delia Ramirez

Delia Ramirez represents Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

Andy Kang is the managing director of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a national coalition of immigrant rights organizations.

The Dictatorship

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Published

11 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Jun. 10, 2026, 6:14 PM EDT

A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.

Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.

Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.

Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.

The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”

Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.

Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”

Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.

A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.

Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump is accelerating our Social Security insolvency crisis

Published

11 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jun. 10, 2026, 5:50 PM EDT

The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.

The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.

The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities.

Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last yearlast year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.

To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”

That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed outSocial Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffedincreased wait timesand reduced quality of customer service.

Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.

The Dictatorship

Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 6.10.26

Published

11 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The latest from Northern Ireland: “The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence in Belfast overnight, with masked men burning families out of their homes and torching vehicles. The appeal ‌came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned the violence by ‘masked thugs’ that had targeted ethnic minorities.”

* In related news: “The British government hit out at X owner Elon Musk Wednesday, accusing him of whipping up tensions online ahead of disorder in Belfast.”

* The tenuous state of a dubious ceasefire: “Trump said the U.S. is going to hit Iran ‘hard’ today when pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about his statement earlier that Tehran will ‘pay the price’ for taking ‘too long’ to reach a peace agreement. ‘Well, we’re going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard, resuming bombing,’ he said.”

* The latest casualty figures from Lebanon: “Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has killed at least 3,666 people, including 131 healthcare workers, and injured more than 11,300 since the U.S. and Israel began their war with Iran in late February, the Lebanese health ministry reported yesterday.”

* The changing nature of modern warfare: “Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.”

* This seems like a reasonable request: “Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee demanded Wednesday that Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for acting director of national intelligence, submit to a full security check before assuming the post, including an examination of his financial holdings and foreign contacts.”

* Some market trends can’t be stopped despite the White House’s best efforts: “Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said.”

* A bizarre schedule for a nonemergency vanity project: “Federal officials are laying more groundwork to begin construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, sharing additional documents that detail the project’s scope and an aggressive timetable for potentially completing work before Trump’s term ends. According to National Park Service documents posted this month, the administration envisions 20 hours per day of construction on the arch, year-round, in hopes of completing the project within two to three years.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”