Trump's Politically Toxic Brute Squad
The brutality is only just beginning
As Donald Trump undoubtedly intended, his border czar is straight from Central Casting: Tom Homan is a crude barking bully-boy who really is the perfect face for The Brutal American. And his hour has come round at last.
Full of sound and fury, Homan strutted onto the stage at Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida this weekend and delivered a full-throated defense of Trump’s immigration jihad — family separations, militarized sweeps, brutalized gulags, masked agents, and the renditioning of migrants. Briefly interrupted by a heckler, Homan preened: “You want some? Come get some… “Tom Homan isn’t going anywhere. Tom Homan isn’t shutting up.”
Indeed, he is not, which might be a problem for Trump and the GOP, because — with apologies to Buffalo Springfield — something’s happening here; and what it is, ain’t exactly clear.
Happy Monday.
This is not a drill.
I’m frequently asked: What can we do? How can we fight back? How can we get through this? How can we stay sane?
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A delusional GOP?
As readers of “To the Contrary” know, I do not hesitate to call out Delusional Democrats.1 (Trigger warning: there’s a lot more of that to come.)
But there is reason to believe the Republicans may be the ones who are now badly mis-reading the political landscape. Since 2016 Trump has ridden anti-immigrant sentiment and the GOP has fully embraced even his most draconian policies.
But new polling suggests that public opinion is shifting at the very moment that Trump/Miller/Noem/Homan are escalating their war on immigration. According to the latest Gallup survey: “Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated.”
30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago
A record-high 79% consider immigration good for the country
Only 17% think that immigration is “a bad thing” for the country
Support is down for border wall, and for mass deportation
Look at the trend lines as Americans have seen Trump’s crackdown in real time:
The poll also found that Trump is losing independent voters on the issue:
Exit take: Republicans have long assumed that immigration was a winning wedge issue — and they have just spent an extraordinary amount of political capital on that bet.
Here comes the brute squad
Despite the shifting poll numbers, the worst is very much yet to come.
Trump’s BBB provides a massive $170 billion increase for immigration enforcement — tens of billions of dollars for more deportations, detention centers, and hiring 10,000 new agents. With the legislation, ICE will become the highest funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.”
Via CBS: “Trump's "big, beautiful bill" gives ICE unprecedented funds to ramp up mass deportation campaign.”
The money allocated by the law amounts to the largest infusion of funds Congress has given the federal government for immigration enforcement, at a time when the Trump administration has vowed to oversee a deportation campaign of unprecedented proportions.
Overall, the Republican-led Congress set aside roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security efforts through the legislation, including $75 billion in extra funding for ICE, making it by far the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
"The bill will supercharge immigration enforcement," said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
The flood of money comes as MAGA spokesmen like Tom Homan have become increasingly aggressive in defending the use of masked agents, and even detaining individuals simply based on their physical appearance.
As Andrew Sullivan notes, Trump is now “building a police force larger than most armies — and domestic gulags to boot.”
Thousands of men and women with the power to seize anyone off the street will have no faces, no badges, no identification, and often no uniform….
With masks, we unleash thousands of unaccountable, unknowable, and armed figures on the streets of America, breaking down doors, scaring kids, raiding Home Depots, SWATing car washes, evoking what can only be called random acts of state terror. And this, we discover, is the point. The whole purpose is to engender so much fear that migrants self-deport and potential migrants never come.
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The brutality is the point
Homan’s super-sized ICE is also gearing up as MAGA is celebrating and marketing its enthusiasm for cruel and unusual punishment. Lawmakers who toured the new Florida detention facility “described harsh and horrific conditions for those imprisoned in cages crammed with 32 adult men in each”.
" They are using cages. These detainees are living in cages. The pictures that you've seen don't do it justice. They are essentially packed into cages, wall to wall humans," said [Democratic Representative] Wasserman Schultz.
MAGA is loving it.
In case you missed it, the “Alligator Alcatraz,” is not merely the nickname for the new Florida gulag — that is actually its formal name.
Alligator Alcatraz is not just a moniker designed to sell political merchandise. It is actually the official name of the state-run immigration detention facility that Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration built to help detain more people caught in President Donald Trump's immigration sweeps.
"Yes, it is the official name," Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, said in an email to the Herald/Times.
The name has already inspired the Florida Republican Party to sell shirts, hats and koozies with the what appears to be AI-generated images of a prison with gators and pythons. Uthmeier, a DeSantis appointee, is also selling "Alligator Alcatraz" gear – including bumper stickers, golf balls and coffee mugs that say "Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide" – to raise political cash for his 2026 election.
It’s going to get worse. Much worse.
From this weekend’s headlines:
Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants to countries other than their own, with as little as six hours’ notice, even if officials have not provided any assurances that the new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture, a top official said in a memo.
Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote in a memo to the ICE workforce Wednesday that a Supreme Court ruling last month had cleared the way for officers to “immediately” start sending immigrants to “alternative” countries.
Trump Administration Poised to Ramp Up Deportations to Distant Countries - The New York Times
The lack of information about detainees sent to South Sudan and El Salvador has drawn charges from a group of independent experts appointed by the United Nations that the United States may be engaging in “enforced disappearance,” state-sponsored abductions that are banned under international law.
In April, the U.N. experts issued a statement that U.S. deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador “appeared to involve enforced disappearances.” Last Tuesday, days after the Supreme Court ruled that the flight to South Sudan could move forward, the experts broadened their concerns to include the Trump administration’s deportation policies more generally.
The resistance gathers
Despite the serial surrenders by SCOTUS, the courts continue to push back. Joyce Vance provides a quick summary of recent developments:
Judge Hernán Vera in Los Angeles ordering the Los Angeles Police Department to stop assaulting, detaining, and using nonlethal ammunition against journalists who are covering protests. He also ordered LAPD to stop limiting journalists’ movements absent conditions that absolutely require it.
Also in the Central District of California, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, in an order that applies only in that district, has granted a temporary restraining order directing DHS/ICE to stop making arrests in violation of the 4th Amendment, using appearance, accent, and type of work to arrest people, because none of those considerations amount to probable cause. She’s also ordered that people who have been detained are entitled to access to legal counsel and access to confidential phone calls at no cost with their counsel—none of which should even be an issue.
And then there is shifting public opinion.
Exit take: In theory, Americans supported a crackdown on illegal immigrants and the deportation of criminals. But the reality of Trump’s policies — the masked agents, arrests of non-criminal migrants, abuse of due process — is catching up with the talking-points.
A brutal crackdown on migrants is not the winner that Donald Trump imagines it to be. In fact, it is about to turn politically toxic.
Sunday dogs
Auggie watches over his people.
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One Democrat who apparently has no illusions? John Kerry:
"The first thing any president should say, any president, or anybody in public life, is, without a border protected, you don't have a nation — I believe that. If you're going to define your nation, you have to have a border that means something," Kerry said during an interview on BBC's "Reflections" podcast. "We have a system. I wish President Biden had been heard more often saying, 'I'm going to enforce the law.'"
Kerry served as former President Barack Obama's Secretary of State and was also the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, losing to George W. Bush. BBC correspondent James Naughtie said during the discussion that Trump would likely point at Kerry's remarks and declare he was right about the issue.
"He was right," Kerry responded. "The problem is we all should have been right. Everybody should have been right, doing the same thing, all moving in the same direction."
Alligator Alcatraz? Mor like DeSantis Dachau.
There is $29billion allocated for thugs and concentration camps, but nothing for healthcare, education and veterans. Let that sink in for a minute.