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

Clean energy group sets its sights on a new GOP target: Lauren Boebert

Published

11 minutes ago

October 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A clean energy group is launching a $1.5 million spend against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), its latest effort this midterm cycle targeting Republicans who actively work against renewables.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition’s first ad in the spend, which was obtained by Blue Light News, focuses on an embarrassing incident for Boebert: when she was ejected from a live musical performance of “Beetlejuice” for allegedly vaping, singing and recording the show.

“If Lauren Boebert can’t be trusted in a room full of kids, then she can’t be trusted in the halls of Congress,” the ad says.

The spot makes no mention of clean energy or Boebert’s attacks on the so-called “Green New Scam.” The strategy mimics the group’s previous playbook that it has deployed to help defeat Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in their Republican primaries earlier this year, as the latter two sought statewide office. The PAC had tried to paint Ogles as an absentee member of Congress and Roy as insufficiently MAGA.

The group, which is backed by solar executives, has become an increasingly forceful player this cycle, which has seen a massive influx of outside spending.

“This industry has been villainized and used as a punching bag at times by the right, and the industry hasn’t always punched back,” said Chris Coffey, the CEO of Tusk Strategies, which is helping run the group. “Maybe when they’re deciding who to villainize next year, they will at least be like, ‘You know what? I don’t need problems with those guys.’”

Boebert’s district is historically deeply red. But Invest in Tomorrow also commissioned a poll, which shows she is underwater: 39% of likely voters view her favorably and 55% view her unfavorably. It also found Boebert leading the district’s Democratic nominee Eileen Laubacher by 5 points.

The poll, conducted by Impact Research from Sept. 21 to 24, polled 403 likely voters and had a margin of error of ±4.8%.

Congress

Trahan unveils AI liability discussion draft

Published

8 hours ago

October 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Lori Trahan on Wednesday unveiled a discussion draft for a bill that would make artificial intelligence developers liable when their products cause harm.

The legislation comes after OpenAI’s agents escaped containment and autonomously hacked into AI platform Hugging Face and accessed U.S. government websites.

The Clear Liability for Artificial Intelligence Misconduct Act aims to make it easier for those harmed by so-called rogue AI to bring claims against developers. Trahan’s bill does not preempt new state laws on AI liability — historically a prerequisite for attracting Republican support in the House.

“When someone breaks the law and hurts you, you can take them to court. That shouldn’t change just because the wrongdoer is an AI agent,” Trahan (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Developers have already built systems capable of acting on their own and causing real damage. The CLAIM Act makes sure they answer for what their systems do.”

Legal experts have warned that existing laws require proof of intent or negligence, standards that can be difficult to show in court when AI models go rogue.

Trahan’s bill would ensure AI developers are unable to argue that their AI systems are incapable of intent. Instead, courts “would presume an AI system acted with the state of mind a person taking the same actions would have had.”

Trahan spokesperson Francis Grubar said work on the CLAIM Act began almost immediately after theJuly introduction of the FRONTIER Act, legislation with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) that would grant the government power to restrict the deployment of AI models deemed to pose catastrophic risks. While that bill aims to prevent serious harms before they happen, Grubar said the CLAIM Act would address how to impose accountability for existing damages.

Unlike an AI liability proposal announced last week by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Trahan’s legislation would not amend the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Grubar said the CLAIM Act would instead impose clearer liability on a broader range of harms, as well as autonomous or AI-enabled cyberattacks.

The CFFA, an anti-hacking law that bars individuals from accessing a computer without consent, requires proof of intent to hack into a computer system, which can’t be as easily applied to AI agents.

The Hugging Face incident, along with a flurry of other disclosed hacking incidents by rogue AI agents from OpenAI and other AI developers, has sparked a debate over how companies should be held legally liable for their AI systems.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in an interview with Blue Light News’s Decoded podcast, said there should be a new “liability framework” to hold developers accountable for AI-powered cyberattacks. His comments come after White House officials like Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who was recently appointed as AI czar by President Donald Trump, previously said that existing product liability laws are sufficient for now in addressing AI’s risks.

Congress

Vance to sit for CBS town hall in Michigan ahead of midterms

Published

8 hours ago

October 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Vice President JD Vance will take questions from Michigan voters in a CBS News town hall airing Oct. 17 as the Trump administration prepares a closing message to voters ahead of the midterms.

The town hall comes amid a blitz of campaign events for Vance and President Donald Trump as their party faces multiple headwinds that could cost them control of the House and Senate.

Michigan’s Senate contest between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers has become one of the cycle’s closely watched battleground contests. Michigan also has several competitive House races and will elect a new governor for the first time in eight years.

Vance campaigned in Michigan with Rogers, gubernatorial nominee John James and Mike Bouchard Jr., the GOP nominee in the 10th Congressional District, at an Aug. 31 rally in Sterling Heights. Rep. Lisa McClain also appeared at the event.

The one-hour special, moderated by “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, will be recorded earlier in the week. Vance and Dokoupil will discuss issues facing voters, including affordability, tariffs, immigration, health care, artificial intelligence, the war with Iran and the state of American democracy, according to CBS News.

The two were scheduled for a town hall interview in March, but the vice president postponed due to the war with Iran.

The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.