Trump's immigration and aid policies — and what should come next

Washington Post

10-07-2025

Regarding the July 5 front-page article 'ICE plans detention blitz with $45 billion infusion':
I am waiting to see what the Trump administration does with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's new $45 billion in funding. I hope ICE does not waste this money on just building new facilities that will not be needed long term. Just imagine what the administration could do with that funding.
Some initiatives could be designed to improve conditions in detention facilities. Why not use the funds for renovations, expansions or even to build new federal prisons? Why not build facilities that could easily be converted into housing or hospitals when they are no longer needed as detention facilities? That funding could also be used for a work training program to replace deportees who are currently in important roles such as cooks, food servers, cleaners, child care and health care workers and maintenance workers.
$45 billion is a lot of money. The administration needs to make sure it's used productively.
Barry Korb, Rockville
The administration has been clear: If you're here in our country illegally we're going to deport you. So, keep it simple.
Either we accept only legal immigration in America or we don't. Either it's a crime to be here illegally or it's not, and either that law applies to everyone or it applies to no one. The administration says they'll consider exempting longtime workers who have broken immigration laws if they continue to benefit us in industries such as farming and hospitality. This practice of using people when they suit you and discarding people when they don't is very disconcerting.
The concept of owners of farms and hotels gathering to discuss their concerns regarding losing their staff of undocumented migrant workers is astounding. This illegal hiring practice has become so commonplace the owners forget, or ignore, that they've been breaking the law. The owners of the farms and hotels should be fined or arrested for employing undocumented individuals. President Donald Trump's proposed exemption for workers who have been working for farmers for many years opens up another dilemma. This would likely be accomplished by improving the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, which allow employers to temporarily hire migrant workers but do not offer a direct path to citizenship. Those workers pay taxes but are not eligible to vote. Now, that sounds like a one-way street to me, and one that would mainly benefit just the business owners. Either we should create a path to citizenship for migrants to become full-fledged Americans or we should deport them.
Lance C. McCormack, Marco Island, Florida
The Trump administration has some troubling priorities. For many months, President Donald Trump has said he wants to dismantle and defund the Federal Emergency Management Agency and leave disaster response to the states. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem recently announced the agency will cover some of the costs of running the new massive detention facility in Florida that Trump's supporters have nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz.
The One Big Beautiful Bill is set to pour even more money on immigration, even though only 8 percent of arrested migrants committed violent crimes. About $170 billion will go to immigration enforcement, including more than $46 billion to finish the wall along the southern border, which is more than three times what was allocated during Trump's first term. And $45 billion is allocated for building and maintaining detention facilities, which represents an increase of 265 percent to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention budget. Plus, there is a threefold increase of ICE's enforcement and deportation budget, which will now stand at about $30 billion.
The floods in Texas should be a reminder of FEMA's importance. If scaling the agency down is a budget issue, why is his administration prioritizing throwing money at immigration?
Jerry Hanson, Elkhorn, Wisconsin
I need to get this straight: While taxpayers are paying to transform an isolated training airport into an immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades, and while Mexico has large migrant shelters just over the border from Texas sitting almost empty, the United States deported eight immigrants convicted of crimes (and who had finished or nearly finished their sentences) to South Sudan, a crime and famine-ridden country in the midst of a civil war. And the people who made that decision are Americans who believe in 'justice for all?'
Carolyn Clark Miller, Alexandria
The June 29 front-page article 'As U.S. cut aid, Sudan's children starved' was emotionally powerful but analytically flawed.
The article framed U.S. government aid reductions as a central reason as to why children in Sudan are dying of starvation, and in doing so, misled the public.
I spent more than 35 years responding to crises around the world — including 32 years working inside Sudan — and I can say with certainty that the driving force behind Sudan's humanitarian collapse is not budget restructuring in Washington. It is war.
Sudan is currently being torn apart by a brutal internal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. More than 12 million people have been displaced. And according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, entire regions have tipped into Phase 5, their most catastrophic level of food insecurity. Infrastructure has collapsed, supply routes have been severed and aid workers have been targeted. In these conditions, even the best funded programs fail.
The article acknowledged the war, but its overall framing gave disproportionate weight to the idea that the U.S. Agency for International Development's reorganization is what pushed the conditions in Sudan over the edge. Even when USAID's budget approached $43 billion annually, there were starving children in Sudan and elsewhere. We should understand that in 2023, disaster relief and other humanitarian assistance made up only 21.7 percent of all the foreign aid disbursed. That type of funding has saved lives and continues to do so. But even fully funded humanitarian appeals cannot stop a war, or prevent militias from looting clinics, burning towns or blocking relief convoys.
The article also omitted a crucial detail about how Sudan got here. The RSF, now a central actor in the conflict, was born from the Janjaweed militias that devastated Darfur in the early 2000s. In 2013, they were rebranded and formalized. And in 2014, the European Union launched the Khartoum Process and the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa the following year, directing hundreds of millions of euros toward migration control and border security to countries such as Sudan. The financial support was a major contributing factor to the RSF's transformation from tribal militia to powerful paramilitary force. That is a key part of Sudan's tragedy — and one the article should have acknowledged.
I have personally seen the unfathomable suffering and loss of life in Sudan — it is devastating and heartbreaking. But why are we advocating a humanitarian solution to a political problem? If we provided $50 billion in foreign assistance to Sudan today, it would not relieve the Sudanese people of their suffering. We must pursue permanent solutions, including appointing a special envoy for Sudan, as I recently advocated in front of the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee. Concerned nations must push for a real and lasting political solution to Sudan's war.
Ken Isaacs, Boone, North Carolina
The writer is vice president of programs and government relations at Samaritan's Purse and former director of the USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
After reading that the State Department justifies cutting aid to starving children in Sudan on the grounds that feeding them doesn't 'align directly with what is best for the United States,' I realized I've been naive in thinking the United States has learned to reject the worst aspects of nationalism. But I'd like to think that my fellow Americans are better than that.
When a neighbor's house is on fire, do we help put out the blaze purely to protect our own property? I would hope something greater drives us — that we care about the value of our fellow humans' lives.
What a privilege it is to live in a country that has the resources to save millions of lives around the world. We should remind our citizens that serving others ethically, spiritually and logically more than pays for itself.
Marina Koestler Ruben, Washington
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