The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Funds an Expensive Immigration Crackdown
President Donald Trump signed his One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law on Friday. The sweeping legislation includes boosts to military funding, more taxpayer financing of state-sponsored events, and massive appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Here are some of the bill’s largest line items aimed at implementing Trump’s immigration crackdown.
1. Over $6 Billion for Autonomous Screening Technology at the Border
The OBBBA will “combat the entry or exit of illicit narcotics at ports of entry” by procuring “new nonintrusive inspection equipment,” including artificial intelligence (AI), air and marine operations, surveillance technologies, and biometric entry and exit systems to screen individuals. None of the funds may be used for the procurement or deployment of surveillance towers along the northern or southern borders, unless Customs and Border Patrol has tested and accepted that the towers deliver “autonomous capabilities,” or “a system designed to apply artificial intelligence…to accurately detect, identify, classify, and track items of interest in real time…without the active engagement of personnel or continuous human command or control.”
The implementation of this technology should be met with scrutiny. Few guidelines exist on the federal government’s use of AI, which invites risks to due process and civil liberties for both migrants and American citizens. While “border security” sounds like an appealing use case to some, without transparency and limitations on how and when the technology can be used, the tools could be adapted to meet other ends. In fact, it has already happened—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are currently using facial recognition technology that was designed to track border crossings in the field to aid in Trump’s immigration crackdown.
2. $56.5 Billion To Build a Border Wall
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