As Donald Trump’s administration has swindled millions of dollars from critical projects and agencies such as FEMA to aid his mass deportation agenda, an investigation by the Daily Beast finds that since the start of his presidency, Homeland Security has spent nearly $120 million of its funding on office furniture and supplies. Not blankets or soap or even a fucking toothbrush for jailed migrant kids, but instead luxury recliners for officials’ rears.
“The office furniture expenditures, sorted by code in the Federal Procurement Data System Product and Service Codes Manual, include filing cabinets, dry-erase boards, desks, and many, many chairs—and does not include cots, bed frames, or mattresses destined for use by undocumented immigrants in detention centers,” the Daily Beast reports. “Much of the new furniture is earmarked for the department’s new Washington, D.C. headquarters, dubbed ‘the most ambitious federal building project since the Pentagon.’”
At least $1,500,000 of that was spent on Herman Miller goods—“the luxury furniture maker whose Aeron chair is featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection”—for just two U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices. Keep in mind that USCIS, which processes applications for permanent residence and other documents, has a backlog at “crisis levels,” the American Immigration Council said, and agency leaders had the gall to ask staff to volunteer extra time to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with paperwork.
But $803,095.54 in Herman Miller furniture for one office in Jackson, Mississippi. Meanwhile, this past June, New Yorker magazine reported that Customs and Border Protection officials treated a lice outbreak among kids jailed at a Clint, Texas, facility by giving them two combs to share. When the children lost one of the combs, agents “got so mad that they took away the children’s blankets and mats. They weren’t allowed to sleep on the beds, and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb.”
The administration’s swindling is also affecting U.S.-born kids. “Congress appropriated money for a new middle school at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell,” Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson wrote earlier Friday. “Then, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s help, Donald Trump took that money to build his border wall, leaving kids in McConnell’s home state behind.” The New York Times reports that “teachers at Mahaffey will continue to use mobile carts to store their books, lesson plans and homework assignments because there is not enough classroom space.” MAGA.