Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Secret police slush fund is gonna be SO corrupt

Secret police slush fund is gonna be SO corrupt

Last updated on: July 15, 2025 at 4:52 pm by Fred Clark

0 Comments

Secret police slush fund is gonna be SO corrupt 2025-07-15T16:52:24-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The One Big Bill the Trump administration includes a massive expansion of funding for “border security,” ICE, and other anti-immigrant functions of the Department of Fatherland Security. This will produce a corresponding massive increase in corruption.

Consider the U.S. Coast Guard, which had — and still has — an annual budget of around $14 billion. Since next year’s budget is pretty much the same as last year’s budget, they know where that money has gotta go and thus where that money is gonna go.

But ICE and DHS are getting a ton of new money, tens of billions of dollars only vaguely designated for vague purposes. It’s new money, not needed money, and so where it’s gotta go and where it’s gonna go are open questions.

That creates a gold rush for grifters and scammers and unscrupulous contractors of every sort who will be scrambling for a piece of the pie. All that money makes such a succulent sound.

This would be true of any agency or entity experiencing such an abrupt and massive expansion. If such a thing as a benevolent billionaire existed and tbey waved a magic wand to suddenly quadruple the annual funding for, say, Doctors Without Borders, the grifters and scammers would swoop in like vultures, looking for a way to divert some of that money into their own pockets and crypto wallets. But corruption would be more difficult to pull off in that case because every penny of that new funding would be desperately needed and everyone involved would already know precisely where it could and should be spent.

In the case of ICE, the need for all this money is not urgent, or well-defined, or well-understood. Lots of this money could easily go missing — 10 million here, 10 million there — with no one noticing, or caring, since every existing part of the agency is already enjoying it’s own bonanza of extravagant over-budgeting.

Add to this the fact that the Trump administration has already DOGE’d away every government watchdog, inspector general, GAO researcher, etc. — meaning nobody is watching where this money is going — and it’s basically open season.

The big, round figures being widely reported suggest the new law tosses some $170 billion to $200 billion to DHS, which includes around $50 billion to build a wall across the southern border, $45 billion to build new detention centers and camps, $27 for transporting deportees, and $8 billion to recruit and retain ICE officers.

You will not live long enough to count to any of those numbers, but to put them in some perspective, think again of that annual budget for the U.S. Coast Guard. It’s $14 billion a year used to be much larger than the $10 billion or so designated for ICE. Now ICE will be getting more than 10 times what the Coast Guard will.

I would guess that the $50 billion committed to “build the wall” across the southern border will wind up being the biggest boondoggle in this budget. If even half of that $50 billion actually goes to construction of an actual wall I would be surprised.

Where will it go instead? Who knows? The Cayman Island account of some shell company owned by a shell company owned by a shell company. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are just going to evaporate — poof! — never to be seen again by anyone who isn’t already an oligarch in the 1% of the 1%.

Billionaires stealing billions from taxpayers is, of course, a Bad Thing, and yet I’m still somewhat ambivalent about all of that pending corruption, because stealing billions from taxpayers to actually build an actual wall is also a Bad Thing. The builders of such walls always start out by insisting that they’re being built to keep people out, but those walls always — always, always, always — wind up existing to keep people in. So flamboyant corruption is a Bad Thing but the flamboyant corruption that will divert tens of billions of dollars from that second Bad Thing is, in a sense, less bad. Maybe. Sort of.

That’s also true of some of the extreme corruption that will swallow 50% or more of the $45 billion tabbed to build new camps and detention centers. Hundreds of millions of those dollars will simply be absorbed by the layers upon layers of middlemen who will sniff out the opportunity created by this huge new unaccountable slush fund. There will be consultants hired to select the consultants who will hire more consultants, with each tier taking a cut of the spending like a club sandwich of corruption. All of that will be shady, but probably still technically legal. But then there will also be more extreme forms of corruption. Years from now we will learn about phantom detention centers — movie-set facades that collected years of funding to feed and house phantom detainees who existed only as fake names on a computer screen.

We’ve already had hints of this sort of thing, even before ICE’s budget was turbo-charged by the Big Bill. There have already been reports of private detention centers collecting funds for detainees who did not exist. Shoveling another $45 billion out the window and putting it up for grabs is a massive incentive for all kinds of fraud.

Here, again, I’m ambivalent about some of the fraud and corruption this slush fund is going to produce across America. If some grifter creates a phantom detention center filled with imaginary detainees, then every dollar he scams away is a dollar that cannot otherwise be spent on Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance’s ethnic-cleansing crusade to Make America White Again. Fraud and corruption of that sort might be not just ethically defensible, but ethically obligatory. (I am still re-reading The Hiding Place. The devout Dutch Reformed ten Boom family absolutely believed that fraud and corruption to siphon away Nazi assets was an ethical, and religious — and Calvinist! — obligation. This was also, you’ll recall, the m.o. at the heart of Schindler’s List.)

I can envision Nathan Ford in an episode of Leverage telling his band of merry outlaws “Let’s go steal a detention center.” If the oligarchs and their cronies and toadies are going to enrich themselves by feeding at this trough with impunity, perhaps some heroes could Robin Hood away some of those funds as well and put them to use for good instead of evil.

But, alas, that happy fantasy is still just a fantasy. The real, ugly corruption we’re about to see from this mega-billions slush fund for detention centers and camps will mostly come in the form of shoddy, unsafe construction, nearly starvation-level feeding of detainees, and grossly inadequate medical facilities for them. The so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Everglades was constructed by some of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ biggest donors and closest cronies. They built it in just a few weeks. They also may have built it to last just a few weeks. Corners will be cut, precautions will be ignored, standards will be lowered. These folks are going to make the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. look responsible by comparison.

The kind of people willing to take billions of dollars to detain innocent people who are being denied every legal protection are the kind of people who will not care at all if those detainees suffer or die in their care. There is not, and never has been, any such thing as an honest concentration camp operator driven by concern for the rights, well-being, or dignity of the detainees they hold. The corruption of these camp-builders and camp-operators will only be exceeded by their depravity and cruelty.

That leaves the $8 or $10 billion apparently designated for the recruiting and retention of ICE agents — a sum nearly equal to the entirety of the agency’s budget for previous years. The ambition here is to turn this federal secret police force into the largest such agency in the world. With that kind of money being thrown at recruiting and retention, that seems likely, but it turns out that instant, exponential growth for any such agency is an extremely difficult thing to pull off.

There’s a reason, after all, that D-Day was in 1944 and not in 1942. Even FDR couldn’t massively expand the Army in one year. And nobody in the Trump administration has anything like the leadership skills of an FDR.

Journalists Garret Graff and John Pfaff have both written good reports on how difficult it would be to suddenly and massively grow ICE and Border Patrol, showing how much less ambitious attempts at rapid growth have failed and foundered. “Trump‘s megabill gives billions to ICE — but hiring 10,000 new agents won’t be easy,” Pfaff writes. The headline for Graff’s piece is more straightforward: “Spending $200 Billion on ICE Is a Terrible Idea.”

This new effort isn’t a new beat for Graff. He’s done detailed reporting on earlier efforts to boost the size of Border Patrol:

What happens when a law enforcement agency at any level grows too rapidly is well documented: Hiring standards fall, training is cut short, field training officers end up being too inexperienced to do the right training, and supervisors are too green to know how to enforce policies and procedures well.

I spent nearly five years reporting heavily on the decade-long epidemic of corruption that paralyzed the Border Patrol after its ill-conceived Bush-era post-9/11 hiring surge—including interviewing every single person who had served as commissioner of CBP, visiting detention facilities, and even doing ride-alongs on the southern border by truck, boat, and helicopter. The Border Patrol’s hiring surge doubled the size of the force in just a few years, from about 9,200 to 18,000, a move roughly equivalent to (but still less than!) what we’re about to see happen with ICE.

… As CBP’s then-commissioner, Gil Kerlikowske, told me back in 2014, “Law enforcement always regrets hiring quickly.” Anyone familiar with policing can rattle off the police hiring surges that inevitably led to spikes in corruption—including mistakes like the 1980 Miami police hiring surge and the infamous Washington Metropolitan Police class of 1989, when Mayor Marion Barry tried to increase the police force by nearly half in a single year. Both agencies saw widespread corruption problems that took years to fix.

All of this happened with the Border Patrol. CBP and the Border Patrol hired cartel members and even a serial killer—and put them out in the field with inadequate training and supervision. According to two people I interviewed who had been involved in the hiring process, the Border Patrol regularly sent new agents through the academy and even out into the field before completing full background checks.

Pfaff has similar worries that screening and standards might get washed away by the new flood of money for hiring and recruitment, but he also just doesn’t think they’ll be able to find more applicants even if they expanded eligibility to include cartel members and serial killers and Proud Boys and Oathkeepers.

I very much hope they’re both right about this and that the agency’s goal of doubling or tripling the size of its domestic army may not be possible even with billions of dollars to spend.

The corruption that will absolutely and certainly follow the creation of this new ICE slush fund is a certainty. The only aspect of that about which I am not certain is whether or not any of that corruption will be something that can be tied directly to Trump himself or to his family organization. I would guess yes, but I would also guess that this will not matter to his supporters. Steve Bannon, after all, was already found to have defrauded thousands of the MAGA faithful with his own personal “Build the Wall” scam. He pocketed the money — their money, their donations, without contributing anything to “the wall.” And yet his reputation in MAGA-world remains undiminished.

There are just so many forms of corruption. And we’re about to see a speed-run of all of them. Welcome to the Boomtown.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 14, 2025

'Perversion of Justice' revisited

Next Post

July 16, 2025 There's a lady who stands in a harbor for what we believe

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Cheetahs might be the next largest cats that purr."

P J Evans

Smart people saying smart things (10.20.26)

"I want to a "casino party" where we got tickets to "bet" with. I found ..."

P J Evans

Smart people saying smart things (10.20.26)

"https://uploads.disquscdn.c..."

Old Man Shadow

Smart people saying smart things (10.20.26)

"Extortion!"

P J Evans

Smart people saying smart things (10.20.26)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Titus, what did God do when his kindness and love appeared?

Select your answer to see how you score.

He established his church He destroyed his enemies He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit He sent his Son