The very name of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is both silly and revealing. The more provisions Congress crams into a single piece of legislation, the harder it is to focus public debate on any one component. So it’s worth asking: What is this big bill trying to hide?
A lot, in my view, but one of the most egregious parts is the spectacular amount of additional money it authorizes for immigration enforcement. $168 billion may not seem like a lot compared to $3.7 trillion in tax cuts and $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, but it is almost a fivefold increase from current spending on enforcement.
As the devoutly libertarian Cato Institute points out, two-thirds of all federal law enforcement spending is already allocated to immigration and border enforcement. The current level of $34 billion a year is 36 times more than what is provided for tax and financial crimes enforcement, 21 times more than funding for firearms enforcement, 13 times more than drug enforcement, and 8 times more than the FBI budget.
Meanwhile, as the deeply progressive Economic Policy Institute points out, labor law enforcement has a budget of just $2.3 billion — despite having the herculean task of protecting 170 million workers. That works out to $13.50 per worker for labor law enforcement, compared to more than $18,000 per undocumented immigrant.