On July 3, Congress passed Trump’s new tax-and-spending bill. Trump calls it the “one big beautiful bill” because it is stuffed full of fascist atrocities and just plain cruelty. Better to call it what it really is: The MAGA Big Blood-Soaked Fascist Bill.

Even the way this bill passed reeks of Trump/MAGA fascism. The bill violates public promises Trump has made. It stomps on the basic human and constitutional rights of millions of immigrants. It shreds longstanding “safety net” programs like Medicaid and casts a long shadow of police-state terror over the whole country. Its cuts in Medicaid alone will without a doubt result in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and an ocean of fear, hunger and suffering among immigrants, women, and poor and working class people generally. Apparently, it is very unpopular with all but his brainwashed hardcore followers. 

But Mein Trumpf wanted it, and the fascist-dominated Congress delivered it.

They did it despite what sometimes was portrayed as passionate opposition to aspects of the bill from Republicans in Congress. Trump bullied and bribed, and the vast majority stepped into line without a peep. Take Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who in the past has garnered some respect (as well as threats against her life) for defying Trump on key votes, and who—at first—loudly and publicly opposed this bill. Trump and MAGA put heavy pressure on her, then threw her a few face-saving crumbs for some people in her state, and she groveled and capitulated. 

Meanwhile the leading Democrats flailed helplessly, made empty gestures, and searched for technicalities. Then immediately after the bill passed, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee gloated about how this devastating attack on the masses of people was actually a “gift on a silver platter” because it would supposedly help them win victory in 2026. How morally bankrupt do you have to be to see something as destructive to people’s rights and lives as this bill as a “gift on a silver platter”? And how stupefied by illusions must you be to talk about “the 2026 elections” as if these are normal times and to ignore the way this bill strengthens the repressive apparatus at Trump’s personal command? 

The Further Consolidation and Expansion of Trump’s Power

On Friday when Trump signed the bill in front of a gaggle of jubilant fascists, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson “gifted” Trump with the gavel that Johnson uses in his official capacity as leader of the House. The gavel is a symbol of Johnson’s authority in the Congress, which under the U.S. Constitution is supposed to be independent of and a check on the president. 

Trump took the gavel from Johnson and began wildly slamming it down on the desk—to cheers. Get it? Trump runs it all.

While not all of this bill's ugly parts fit perfectly together as a whole, it is nevertheless a coherent fascist package, made up of:

• massive funding for a gestapo-style “deportation” force and concentration camps (that can, if needed, also be wielded against the whole population);
• shredding of the social safety net that millions depend on for survival;
• major attacks on what’s left of women’s reproductive rights; and
• big tax cuts for the wealthy. 

This article focuses on the terror against immigrants and others; next week we will get into the cruel attacks on the social safety net in general and on the lives and humanity of Black and other people of color, and women.

Building a Massive, Gestapo-like Force to Use Against Immigrants and Other Regime Targets, Along with a Network of Concentration Camps to Imprison Hundreds of Thousands

The new law finances a massive expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), almost quadrupling its annual budget from $9.6 billion to $37 billion annually (around $150 billion over four years). This will make ICE the biggest policing agency in the U.S., with a larger budget than most national armies, larger even than the Israeli army (prior to its massive war on Gaza).

Even with their old budget, ICE unleashed hell on immigrant communities and anyone who stood by them. Since Trump took back power less than six months ago, tens of thousands have been deported (ICE won’t reveal exactly how many), and nearly 60,000 people are being held in ICE detention centers, or overseas torture-prisons like El Salvador’s CECOT. In cities stretching from Los Angeles to Houston to New York, the terror in immigrant communities has been palpable.

“Super-Sizing” a Gestapo

Now ICE is being “super-sized,” with the stated goal of deporting a million people a year! This reflects the fact that—amidst all the diverse “currents” of the MAGA movement—the fear and hatred of immigrants has been forged as the leading edge. Trump demonizes millions of immigrants—ordinary people, including millions of children—as “dangerous criminals who poison the blood of America.” 

Most immigrants coming to the U.S., and especially those being snatched by ICE, come here from places that the U.S. has plundered and where the destruction wrought by Uncle Sam has made it impossible for people to live. Many are super-exploited, without rights. Trump tells his followers that these immigrants must now be brutally hunted down and deported in order to bring back the “good old days”—“good old days” when white supremacy and male supremacy reigned supreme by virtue of the gun and the noose. J. D. Vance openly said “everything else” in the bill didn’t matter “compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.” 

This systematic dehumanization was on display when Trump celebrated the establishment of an ICE prison in the middle of Florida’s huge Everglades swamp. He bragged and joked about the prospect of immigrants being ripped to pieces by alligators. The image of chained prisoners being chased by wild beasts through southern swamps has echoes of the Jim Crow South in the 1950s and before, when dogs were sicced on Black people. It is what “Make America Great Again” really means. 

So the fascists are going all out with this. $45 billion has reportedly been allotted to dramatically expand ICE’s “detention facilities.” That is 62 percent more than the budget of the whole U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which oversees 122 federal prisons. Given Trump’s performance at what he called “Alligator Alcatraz,” coupled with the lavish praise he has poured on the nightmare prisons in El Salvador, it seems clear that these “detention facilities” will be little more than a network of concentration camps and torture centers.

Rapidly Increasing the Number of Face-Masked Fascist Goons

ICE also plans to dramatically increase the number of marauding goons terrorizing people at Home Depot parking lots, vegetable fields, small garment shops, taco stands, and in their homes. Currently, there are 22,000 of them. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) head Kristi Noem says she wants to add 10,000 more (DHS is in charge of ICE). Given ICE’s highly public reputation as racist fascist thugs with total unaccountability, most of the people who apply and get hired will almost certainly be the type who salivate over the opportunity to wield that kind of white supremacist power with no worries about “legal niceties.” 

Right now, all this is aimed mainly at immigrants—which is a horrific crime against humanity that all decent people must not only condemn but sharply challenge everywhere they can, including in the streets. But there are clearly wider targets on the horizon. ICE (and other federal forces) have already arrested congresspeople, mayors and other political leaders, and they have spearheaded a military occupation of Los Angeles against the wishes of LA’s mayor and California’s governor. Trump has publicly talked about deporting political enemies who are naturalized U.S. citizens, (including the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City), and deporting citizens born in the U.S.

Now think about a monstrously enlarged ICE with its own network of prisons and virtually no checks on it from the courts or anyone else. And imagine this expanded corps of ICE agents not just as anti-immigrant thugs, but as hardcore MAGA loyalists, primed to be Trump’s storm troopers, ready to attack, brutalize, “disappear” or worse whoever the fascist regime points them at, with a vast network of barely regulated, nearly-impossible-to-access camps “at their disposal.” 

This is not a “silver platter,” to recall the remark of that leading Democrat.

It is a five-alarm EMERGENCY.

Next Week: A Wholesale Attack on the Basic Ability of Poor and Working Class People to Live, and a Major Attack on Women’s Right to Abortion and Women’s Healthcare Overall