White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s obsession with kicking millions of undocumented immigrants out of the country is a byproduct of his hateful ethnonationalism – but he also stands to make a pretty penny off the administration’s deportation agenda.
According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel’s data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It’s a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.
Tag Archives: President Donald Trump
Newsweek: Trump admin ordered to return man deported to El Salvador
President Donald Trump‘s administration has been ordered to return a Salvadoran man who was deported minutes after a federal appeals court blocked his removal.
Jordin Melgar-Salmeron was deported to El Salvador on May 7 despite an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, New York, blocking it.
On Tuesday, the appeals court ordered the administration to “facilitate the return” of Melgar-Salmeron as soon as possible to “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
It also directed the government to return to court within one week to provide details on the current location of Melgar-Salmeron and how it planned to return him to the United States.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-ordered-return-man-deported-el-salvador-2090058
CBS News: Cuts to FEMA’s storm prep program hammer communities that voted for Trump
A CBS News investigation found two-thirds of counties that have lost funding from this FEMA program supported President Trump in the 2024 election.
The mayor of Central — a community of about 30,000 outside of Baton Rouge — Evans and his family were forced to evacuate their home by boat in 2016 when flooding from torrential rains destroyed 60% of the structures in town.
“Flood water doesn’t discriminate,” said Evans, a Republican and supporter of President Trump. ‘”Any person that flooded is shocked that it would be considered politics to do flood mitigation.”
So when he received word in April that FEMA was canceling a grant program that would provide nearly $40 million for a new flood control system in Central, he was angry. In a press release, FEMA said the program, which provided funding for infrastructure projects in storm-prone communities, was “wasteful” and had become “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans recover from natural disasters.”
“To me, it’s a brilliant business decision,” said Evans, who said the drainage project in Central would have saved money in the long run by protecting houses that routinely sustain flood damage FEMA ultimately ends up covering. “And then they pulled the rug out from under us.”
Evans and Central aren’t alone. Amid the avalanche of cuts made in the first five months of the Trump administration, none may have red state politicians more up in arms than the cancellation of the infrastructure program, which is formally known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC for short.
The $4.6 billion initiative was launched under the first Trump administration, and a CBS News analysis of FEMA data revealed that two-thirds of the counties awarded grants voted for President Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.
In other words, King Donald is giving his own fan bois the royal shaft!
Alternet: This obscure Supreme Court decision could impact Trump’s agenda — and restore faith in the court
But there is one recent decision where the court was unanimous in its ruling, perhaps because its holding should not be controversial: National Rifle Association v. Vullo. In that 2024 case, the court said that it’s a clear violation of the First Amendment’s free speech provisions for government to force people to speak and act in ways that are aligned with its policies.
The second Trump administration has tried to wield executive branch power in ways that appear to punish or suppress speech and opposition to administration policy priorities. Many of those attempts have been legally challenged and will likely make their way to the Supreme Court.
The somewhat under-the-radar – yet incredibly important – decision in National Rifle Association v. Vullo is likely to figure prominently in Supreme Court rulings in a slew of those cases in the coming months and years, including those involving law firms, universities and the Public Broadcasting Service.
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In May 2024, in an opinion written by reliably liberal Sonia Sotomayor, a unanimous court ruled that the efforts of New York state government officials to punish companies doing business with the NRA constituted clear violations of the First Amendment.
Following its own precedent from the 1960s, Bantam Books v. Sullivan, the court found that government officials “cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
Alternet: ‘Don’t have a smidgen of hope’: [Bimbo #2] Noem to divert FEMA money as flood victims struggle
The New Republic reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem intends to use FEMA funds to build a new detention center in Florida.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier revealed his approval of plans for funding the facility, called “Alligator Alcatraz” with federal money last week. He said on Fox News that the hostile Florida Everglades would act to deter escape from the 39-square-mile site.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,” said Uthmeier.
Despite proposed saving from the facility’s isolation, The New York Times reports it will cost $450 million every year to operate the center, and Noem posted on X that this will be funded “in large part … by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program.”
In other words the money is being stolen from the people for who it was appropriated by Congress — the victims of floods and other natural disasters.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed to deliver cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” [Bimbo #2] Noem’s claimed. “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”
Repeating a lie ad nauseum doesn’t make it true. Only a small percentage of the deportees have criminal records.
NJ.com: Joe Rogan: Trump’s ‘ICE raids are f—king nuts’
Podcaster Joe Rogan criticized President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies in a recent podcast episode as immigration raids continue to sweep the country.
Immigration raids took place across Los Angeles earlier this month, resulting in mass demonstrations across the city. In a podcast episode that aired last week, Rogan said that those raids were “f–king nuts” and questioned whether Trump would have won the election if he said this is how the administration would carry out deportations.
“Bro, these ICE raids are f–king nuts, man,” Rogan told guests Luis J. Gomez and Big Jay Oakerson.
Rogan endorsed Trump in the 2024 election, but has been critical of some of his policies since beginning his second term. He has also pushed back on Trump’s immigration policies, saying previously that deporting migrants to El Salvador was “horrific.”
“The Trump administration, if they’re running and they said, ‘We’re going to go to Home Depot and we’re going to arrest all the people at Home Depot. We’re going to go to construction sites, and we’re going to just like, tackle people at construction sites’… I don’t think anybody would’ve signed up for that,” Rogan said.
“They said we’re going to get rid of the criminals and the gang members first, right? And now we’re seeing, like, Home Depot’s get raided. Like, that’s crazy,” he added.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/joe-rogan-trumps-ice-raids-are-fking-nuts.html
Daily Beast: Trump Sends Dollar Plunging With Plan to Turn Federal Reserve MAGA
The president is looking for a new Fed chair who is “unstintingly loyal.”

The U.S. dollar plunged Thursday to a three-year low after word got out that President Donald Trump is plotting to announce a MAGA-friendly Federal Reserve chair as early as this summer.
Peeved at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s refusal to slash interest rates, Trump has unleashed blistering attacks against the banker, calling him the “WORST” and a “dummy” who is “costing America $Billions.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-sends-dollar-plunging-with-plan-to-turn-federal-reserve-maga
The Hill: Opinion: What ICE agents are doing is outrageous — and legal
The Trump administration’s draconian immigration enforcement actions are raising the specter of American autocracy, prompting many to ask — perhaps for the first time — how the U.S. could possibly have gotten here. Videos of masked ICE agents in street clothes accosting unsuspecting people in public places, or smashing car windows and dragging people into unmarked vehicles, are all over the internet and social media.
The behavior of ICE agents is also revealing glaring blind spots in the law, which has long been premised on the assumption that government officials mostly act in good faith, prompting the widespread question: Can they legally do that?
Rather astonishingly, the answer is — for the most part — yes, they can.
ICE’s heavy-handed tactics are even being used against people once presumed to be immune from raw police brutality: elected officials.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5364547-what-ice-agents-are-doing-is-outrageous-and-legal
Newsweek: ICE arrests 11 Iranian nationals in US amid fears of secret terror cells
The Trump administration said Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had arrested 11 Iranian citizens over the weekend who were in the U.S. illegally.
Among those arrested was a man ordered for removal from the United States 20 years ago, and others accused of breaking immigration laws.
Goody goody for them! If there are any Iranian terrorists running around loose in the U.S.A., I sure wouldn’t count on ICE to catch them! They’re too busy snatching gardners off the front lawns of L.A.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-arrests-iranian-nationals-us-citizen-2089977
MSNBC: Conditions at some ICE facilities are already horrendous — and they may soon get worse
As the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts continue, multiple lawmakers and immigrant rights groups are alleging that conditions at various Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities are “inhumane” and “unsanitary.”
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., sounded the alarm last week in a video, stating she was deeply disturbed by what she saw during her visit to the Adelanto ICE facility, where many people swept up in recent immigration raids around Los Angeles have been brought.
Chu said the detainees she spoke with at the facility were “not the criminals that [President Donald] Trump says that he’s trying to get out of this country,” noting that some of those detained simply had expired documents.
“They are undergoing conditions that are inhumane, in my opinion. They were not able to change their underwear for 10 days,” Chu said in the video, adding: “They did not get a PIN number for the telephone. As a result, they cannot be in contact with any legal representative nor with their family members. This is not right.”