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Funding the immigration crackdown: Early this morning, the Senate passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill at the behest of Republicans and the White House. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) was the only Republican to join the Democrats and oppose the bill's passage.

"Passage came only after Republican leaders quelled an internal revolt that had been simmering for weeks over recent moves by Mr. Trump that have underscored how his personal agenda is diverging sharply from his party's political interests," reports The New York Times. "The divisions threatened to sink the measure and prompted several G.O.P. defections on bipartisan efforts to modify it, all of which failed in an hourslong series of back-to-back votes that stretched all day Thursday and into the predawn hours of Friday."

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One such provision that failed to be removed was a ban on a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that would compensate people who can successfully make the case that the government mistreated them or wrongly targeted them. Now, libertarians could theoretically be very in favor of such a fund. (Great, civil asset forfeiture victims can finally get justice!) But nope: This is likely to be a means of paying out President Donald Trump's allies, some of whom were legitimately mistreated, others of whom weren't.

Another provision that's included in the legislation is an extra $1 billion in security for Trump's new ballroom construction project. But the largest chunk of money will go toward the president's deportation initiatives, funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol.

Throughout the existing deportation push, there has been very little attention paid to respecting the rights of citizens, providing humane conditions to those who are detained, and ensuring agents act legally and judiciously.

"Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal officers have killed at least three U.S. citizens (two in Minnesota and one in Texas), wounded numerous others, and detained hundreds illegally, usually after mistaking them for illegal migrants," writes Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy. "ProPublica found some 170 cases of illegal detention of citizens through October 2025. But that is almost certainly a severe underestimate.…Conditions in ICE detention facilities are often horrific, routinely featuring overcrowding, inadequate food and denial of essential medical treatment. Since the start of the present fiscal year in October, a record 29 people have died in ICE detention, even though the fiscal year is only about half over. The brutality and violations of civil liberties have been exacerbated by the administration's massive expansion of the number of ICE personnel (including hiring many poorly qualified people), and by its imposition of deportation quotas incentivizing arbitrary arrests with little or no proof. There have been so many illegal ICE detentions that courts have ruled against the administration in detention cases some 11,500 times, including thousands of decisions issued by Republican-appointed judges."

Of course, it's worth noting that though "the abuses of the deportation system have increased significantly thanks to Trump's policies," as Somin notes, "the system is cruel and unjust even under more conventional presidents." Many liberal critics have a hard time remembering that "illegal detention and deportation of U.S. citizens long predates Trump" and that bad practices by government agents are worth opposing no matter who's in charge.

More money for enforcement will most likely just enable more of the same, not hiring better agents or ensuring more careful practices.

Scenes from New York: 

I was walking over there yesterday and noticed how different it looks compared to when I first moved to Brooklyn six years ago:

In 2021, The New York City Council approved the rezoning of Gowanus, an industrial and not very built up neighborhood in central Brooklyn, to allow for much more residential construction to help alleviate housing cost pressures in the borough."By one recent count, there are 141 residential projects in development in Gowanus; all told, the 82-acre rezoning is slated to bring upward of 9,000 units—or 20,000 new residents—by 2035," reports The Architect's Newspaper. It's a massive success, though obviously ending the regime of rent control and rent stabilization would also free up housing units to enter the market (and alleviate rent pressures elsewhere). But we'll take what we can get.

QUICK HITS

  • All about the messy personal life of Maine's Democratic candidate for Senate, Graham Platner—including whether he knew he was getting a Nazi tattoo at the time and then lied about it years later.
  • Why can't Los Angeles get all its votes counted to see who advances in the mayoral race? (It's looking increasingly likely that Spencer Pratt will be the guy to run against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the general.)
  • "New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation that bars masked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from operating in the state and restricts federal immigration enforcement at certain sensitive locations like schools and churches," reports Bloomberg. "The new law, signed Friday, also bans local law enforcement agencies from entering into agreements that allow police officers to be deputized as immigration agents and creates a legal pathway for New Yorkers to sue federal officials they believe have violated their rights during immigration operations."
  • "The National Park Service has ordered the removal of three quotes at the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston commemorating a Revolutionary War battle because they have run afoul of President Donald Trump's policy seeking to scrub 'corrosive ideology' from federal institutions," reports The Washington Post.

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