Hispanic Caucus outlines how Trump has stolen millions from critical projects for deportation agenda

The Trump administration has stolen millions upon millions of dollars from “critical security projects” in order to aid its cruel, mass deportation agenda, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus outlined in a must-read Twitter thread, including millions taken from FEMA and the TSA:

Last year, ICE stole $9.8 million from FEMA. That same year, Puerto Rico slowly recovered from Hurricane Maria and wildfires devastated communities across California.

— Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) August 25, 2019

It’s a White House aide and white supremacist Stephen Miller strategy, said Douglas Rivlin of immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice.

“Divert money to ICE to detain immigrants above levels Congress authorized, thereby starving agencies that help people. Use resulting human suffering (hostages) to demand more money from Congress; then divert that money to ICE. Repeat.”

The administration’s swindling to terrorize immigrant families has come at the expense of national security, NBC News reported earlier this year: “money was taken from the response and recovery, preparedness and protection and mission support operations budgets, which are used to prepare for emergencies like Florence.” The Hispanic Caucus:

That’s not all – ICE stole millions from multiple Homeland Security accounts to ramp up detention & deportation of immigrant families, including those who have made a home here in this country.https://t.co/gzjaCSDGIs

— Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) August 25, 2019

This is much further reaching than just ICE. In all, DHS spent over $4 billion last fiscal year for Trumps deportation machine. Billions to raid our communities, tear apart families, and leave children orphaned. Billions on imprisoning immigrants.https://t.co/3vzmMQqH1J

— Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) August 25, 2019

President Trump is choosing to undermine public safety by robbing critical FEMA, TSA & Coast Guard accounts along the way.

For the sake of good governance, Congress must stop this waste & abuse by the Trump Administration.

— Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) August 25, 2019

ICE has also jailed a record number of people in defiance of limits set by Congress, detaining people now and figuring out the money part later. 

“DHS and ICE are flagrantly violating Congressional orders, just as we said they would,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Yet it was Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and I that were wrong to oppose throwing more money to abusive agencies, right?”