Congress is hurtling towards another big bad budget vote and it’s time to say ICE Out for Good again.
Included in the bill is another $70 billion for ICE and CBP, the cruel and inhumane agents of the Trump regime who have been terrorizing our communities for more than a year. These are the very same the same agencies that murdered Alex Pretti and Renee Good on camera – prompting our massive ICE out protests in January and February – not to mention dozens of people injure or who have died in detention – their names have been read aloud at many vigils and actions over the last few months including at the ICE Out VT rally we helped support earlier this month.
Not included, for the moment, is the $1 billion for Trump’s ridiculous ballroom project. Nor have they tried to attach the bill we’ve been warning you about to protect the fossil fuel industry from climate lawsuits and accountability. But with amendment votes likely in the Senate tomorrow, and final passage possible as soon as Friday – a lot can change at any moment.
Quickly, before a final Senate vote: send a message to your Senators and Member of Congress telling them you haven’t stopped paying attention and that you still demand not a penny more for ICE and CBP.
This week the Senate is debating, amending and voting on what’s being called Budget Reconciliation 2.0. But Trump’s fossil fueled fascist regime isn’t stopping at $70 billion in additional gestapo funding. Trump still wants his billion dollar ballroom, he just created a $1.8 billion slush fund for fascist agents off a bogus legal “settlement” between lawyers that all work for him, paid by your taxes. And fossil fueled fascists in Congress are already talking about a third Reconciliation bill that would fund Trump’s wars for oil, deeper cuts to climate and our communities, and more tax breaks for big oil billionaires and corporations.
Republicans are trying to jam all this through using the budget reconciliation process because it only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate. You may remember how ridiculous and corrupt this got when they debated the original 1.0 Big Ugly Budget last year. So far in 2026, Democrats in the Senate have been able to use the filibuster to bottle up any additional funding for ICE and CBP.
And as bad as things are right now, there are signs that when we fight, we can still win. Trump’s been raging at members of his own party who don’t support him on things like wars for oil, racist voter suppression, or the Epstein files. He’s successfully defeated several of them in primary elections in the last few weeks – but here’s the catch: Some of the members of Congress Trump has un-elected, still get to vote on the Budget Bills this week.
That’s why just this week Senator Thom Tillis spoke out against Trump’s ballroom; And just yesterday the Senate voted to advance a War Powers resolution to stop Trump’s war with Iran – something we’ve been calling for since the war began – and the 50th vote delivered by Senator Bill Cassidy, fresh from a primary loss in Louisiana where trump campaigned against him.
Look, in a perfect world Congress wouldn’t be proposing legislation to fund fossil fueled fascism at home, and wars for oil abroad at all. But here we are, and Trump’s unpopularity in the polls combined with some very recent Congressional defections mean that defeating these Budget Bills may actually be possible.