By U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar
In the lead up to last year’s elections, Republicans made two major promises: to lower costs on “day one” and secure the border. Voters endorsed both of those ideas, went to the polls, and gave Republicans total control of our federal government.
Yet, not only have Donald Trump and congressional Republicans failed to lower costs, but “securing the border” has morphed into mass deportations that have created chaos and fear all over the country.
Republicans have sold their “big, beautiful bill” as a means to keeping their promises, but the truth is that instead of making life better for Americans, it will create the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in American history. And the immigration components in the bill do nothing to “secure the border,” but will use your money to enrich the corporations profiting off mass deportations.
Much attention has been paid to the deep health care and nutrition program cuts in the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” – and rightfully so. These cuts to Medicaid will be devastating to children, seniors, Americans with disabilities, and to the hospitals, clinics and nursing homes in our communities.
But another troubling component of their bill hasn’t received enough attention: Republicans want to spend tens of billions of taxpayer dollars for Trump’s horrific mass deportation strategy – one intended to mirror one of the most racist federal deportation operations in American history called “Operation Wetback.”
The 1954 effort by President Eisenhower focused on mass deportation of Mexicans who were believed to be taking Americans’ jobs, but the operation also deported U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.
Despite the fact that America already has the world’s largest immigration detention system, the Trump administration wants a significant expansion of personnel and infrastructure.
To facilitate this, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is given $80 billion for internal immigration enforcement in Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill,” including $45 billion for immigration detention to allow for the detention of more than 100,000 people on any given day.
This would be a stunning 800% increase in spending for detention funding compared to fiscal year 2024.
What’s even more alarming is that much of this money will go to enriching private prisons and corporations all too eager to profit off mass deportations. In shockingly dehumanizing comments that demonstrate the administration’s intention of helping corporations monetize their plan, acting ICE director Todd Lyons recently said the agency needs “to get better at treating (deportations) like a business” and suggested the nation’s deportation system could function “like Amazon, trying to get your product delivered in 24 hours.”
Republicans are talking about people and families as though they are inanimate objects.
Corporations are already reaping the benefits. Companies like The Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic received no-bid contracts worth millions if not billions of dollars in taxpayer money for “immigration enforcement support teams” or to open detention centers across the country. It’s no coincidence we’ve seen their stock prices soar since Trump’s election. From November 2024 to April 2025, The Geo Group’s stock price rose by 94% and shares of CoreCivic increased by 62%.
“Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,” the CoreCivic CEO told shareholders in May.
In our own community, a company was awarded a contract by ICE worth up to $3.85 billion to operate a detention camp in Fort Bliss.
The companies aren’t the only ones benefiting from a spike in stock prices. Recent White House financial disclosure forms show Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller owning between $100,001 and $250,000 in shares from Palantir, a tech company used by ICE and other federal agencies.
In fact, when ICE was not apprehending and deporting a sufficient number of immigrants to fuel the expansion of private detention, Miller stepped in to give ICE a daily arrest quota. At the end of May, Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem directed immigration officials across the nation to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day with a goal of deporting more than 1 million people in one year.
So despite the promise Donald Trump made to prioritize “the worst of the worst” criminals for deportations, Stephen Miller decided that targeted investigations and apprehensions of violent criminals took too much time.
“You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders,” one official recalled Miller saying. “What do you mean you’re going after criminals? Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” another official recalled Miller telling them.
It is this directive that has driven the shocking and painful images Americans are seeing unfolding in their communities every day: agricultural workers being chased through fields; immigrants with legal protections who show up for their court hearing being arrested at courthouses; mothers being taken before they can say goodbye to their children.
Videos have gone viral of men with their faces hidden and often clad in body armor surrounding immigrants at construction sites, restaurants, birthday parties, and recently even at a place of worship.
Contrary to Donald Trump’s promise, the people being targeted are not “the worst of the worst.” They are the workforce that took care of Americans during COVID, help fuel the hospitality industry, are part of the care economy and do back-breaking labor in the fields under the hot sun.
An analysis by the CATO Institute published this month found that ICE has detained 204,297 individuals since the start of fiscal year 2025, with the vast majority of those individuals having no criminal record. In fact, only a very small minority of the immigrants taken into custody by the Trump administration – less than 6% — have committed a violent crime.
But support for these tactics is waning, even among Trump supporters. Recent polling shows that while immigration was Trump’s strongest issue, only 44% agree with his hardline, indiscriminate approach.
Other decisions, such as to deploy Marines in Los Angeles or federalize the California National Guard, yielded similar if not higher disapproval ratings. Prominent Trump supporters like boxer Ryan Garcia and “Latinas for Trump” cofounder Ileana Garcia have come out against ICE raids.
We all want to live in a safe country, but the Trump administration continues to demonize immigrants and weaponize Americans’ fears about crime while lining its own pockets and those of their private prison supporters.
Deporting a 6-year-old girl with cancer doesn’t make our country safer. Taking away legal protections from immigrants to deport them doesn’t make us safer. Targeting farmworkers in the fields doesn’t make us safer. The “big, beautiful bill” will supercharge these injustices and the personal wealth of those in the mass deportation business.
We need to ensure we’re truly prioritizing violent criminals, who we all agree should not be in our communities and have no right to find safe harbor in our country. And Congress can and should find a legislative solution for immigrants who have positively contributed to our nation, often working long, hard days and are a critical facet of our national workforce.
My colleague Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Florida) and I will soon be introducing a new version of our bipartisan Dignity Act, which will bring common-sense solutions to a broken immigration system.
As for the funding that will be lining the pocket of the private prison industry, we could certainly find better use for it. The $45 billion for ICE detention could fund nearly a year of the National Institutes of Health, which oversees grants for live-saving research for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. It could continue funding for the VA’s Toxic Exposures Fund for almost two years, paying for health care and disability benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances.
There’s still time to kill this bill, but time is running out. I urge you to make your voices heard with your senators before the end of the day. And if the Senate has passed its version, it still needs to head back to the House for a final vote.
If we can kill this bill, Democrats and Republicans can work together in a bipartisan manner for common-sense solutions that reform our immigration system, protect tax cuts for the middle class and working poor, lower costs for Americans, but also make the wealthiest in this country pay their fair share.
As a member of the minority party, I will continue to do everything I can do to mitigate the harm to our people and our communities. I remain committed to fighting for our community and keep you informed.
Rep. Veronica Escobar represents El Paso’s 16th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The post Opinion: ‘Big, beautiful bill’ enriches companies running private immigration detention facilities appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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