The government is shut down, but you’d never know it from how much money is spent to terrorize immigrants and—let’s be honest—anyone who supports immigrants.
As if President Donald Trump’s abusive secret police weren’t enough, the administration is now tapping the Navy to help build tent prisons for immigrant detainees.
This is being described as the Department of Homeland Security “funneling $10 billion through the Navy,” which is apparently how we do government spending now—just moving money around wherever it can most efficiently be used to attack immigrants. Now, if it’s for anything else like, say, feeding people, then it’s whoopsie, shutdown.
Texas National Guard members are seen near Chicago on Oct. 7 to assist in President Donald Trump’s military takeover of the city.
As soon as next month, the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security will be using the Naval Supply Systems Command to contract with private companies to build and maintain more immigrant detention centers.
Did I mention these are just going to be tents? Or, as CNN euphemistically put it, “soft-sided facilities.”
One source told CNN that the plan is for each facility to hold up to 10,000 people, likely in Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Utah, and Kansas. In addition to using local jails, ICE currently has funding for roughly 41,000 beds, but “border czar” and bribe enthusiast Tom Homan wants that doubled.
However, DHS has had difficulty quickly lining up contracts, particularly because of that wee little problem where government contracts have to be competitively bid. But ICE has $45 billion in new federal money for immigrant prisons that it’s dying to spend.
Theoretically, using the Navy—which already has relationships with eligible federal contractors—will speed up the process and result in facilities that are less slapdash. But there’s no reason to believe that the Trump administration is actually interested in making these facilities safe for immigrants.
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There’s also likely another reason to partner with the Navy, which is that the administration desperately wants to deploy troops to U.S. cities—whether they’re necessary or not.
It’s not as if deploying a few hundred troops here and there will actually move the needle in terms of truly bringing blue cities to heel. But the mere presence of military members roaming the streets not only normalizes it, but it also serves as an all-purpose way to terrorize immigrants and enforce the regime.
So having the Navy step in makes a lot of sense. Tap into that sweet federal money, get it over to some defense contractors, and make it clear that the government’s one job is to build cages for immigrants.
