Are you registering for asylum and at risk of being detained by ICE? Without SNAP, what would you give up to feed your children? How will you pay for healthcare?
A Colombian man seeking asylum is detained by federal agents as he attends an immigration court hearing at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on October 27, 2025 in New York City.
(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Last Friday night, dozens of asylum seekers in the California city of Stockton, 45 minutes south of Sacramento, received text messages and email notifications telling them they needed to check into an ICE building at 8 a.m. the next day. When they showed up, ICE agents arrested 25 of them. These were people with open asylum claims, and they did what they were told: instead of retreating into the shadows, they went through mandatory registration. If they chose not to show up, their asylum claims would likely be automatically denied, and they would then be eligible for expedited deportation.
This quota-based arrest system appears to be intended to satisfy Stephen Miller's demand that ICE and US Customs and Border Protection arrest at a minimum 3000 immigrants per daycreates a damned-if-you-don't conundrum for millions of immigrants, and it's happening all over the country.
San Diego Union-Tribune recently reported about a similar practice in San Diego, where hapless arrestees are being held in a makeshift basement facility that reportedly lacks even the most basic amenities. Political representatives who attempted to visit the site to investigate allegations of food shortages and lack of access to medical care were turned away. First ICE told them they would have to apply for visitation rights a week in advance; they were then told that due to the government shutdown, such visits were suspended indefinitely.
Roving kidnapping squads have appeared in the Chicago area. more than 1000 immigrants In recent weeks, CBP chief Greg Bovino has all but flaunted his disregard for court orders limiting his agents' use of chemical weapons against protesters. Despite court orders restricting the practice, agents regularly fired tear gas at protesters, including in suburban residential neighborhoods. The behavior of the head of the SCC so outraged the judge presiding over the case that she ordered Bovino check it daily.
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In New York, heavily armed federal agents from ICE, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, equipped with military-grade equipment, marched down Canal StreetIn Lower Manhattan, immigrant street vendors were arrested while horrified locals filmed and berated them for their actions. As burly masked agents walked down the street, they pushed and hit protesting residents. The demonstration was clearly a deliberate demonstration of their power, impunity and ability to humiliate and humiliate anyone who stood in their way.
During the month-long federal government shutdown, these thugs who make up Trump's secret police… didn't miss a salary. Thanks in part $130 million donation from reclusive far-right donor Timothy Mellon, military personnel, allegedly including those who participated in Trump and Pete Hegseth's grotesque and patently illegal campaign to assassinate alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific, did not miss out on pay. Customs and Border Patrol units now also roam America. pay on time. The construction crews who were rushed to demolish the East Wing of the White House without even reconsidering the plan, and who are now preparing to build the ballroom and Trump's triumphal arch, are also expected to be paid.
Trump Lackeys of Big Techincluding Meta, Apple, Amazon, Palantir, Lockheed Martin and dozens of other corporations, found the means to spend $300 million to pay for a flashy ballroom, allowing operations to begin even as core government functions wither on the vine.
While the government's apparatus of security and vanity hums, hundreds of thousands of other federal employees are either laid off or working without pay. These include Transportation Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration crews, public health workers, Veterans Affairs officials, weather modelers, disaster relief teams, workplace safety inspectors, fraud investigators, and so on.
Compounding the damage, tens of millions of Americans who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on their plates are going to cut off from this vital path of life. The USDA is disingenuous in saying that “the well has run dry,” even though the department has billions of dollars in reserve funds that could be used for just such an emergency. The Trump administration has warned states that if they try to maintain SNAP benefits, they will not be reimbursed.
More than 40 million people receive SNAP benefits, and the average amount each household receives is $332 per monthAccording to the US Department of Agriculture. During past government shutdowns, the government has held back those costs, ensuring the most vulnerable Americans don't experience food supply disruptions while lawmakers make mistakes trying to reach an agreement to get the government back on its feet. But this time, Project 2025 ideologues are commanding the ship of state, and the administration is scrapping food benefits in hopes that widespread suffering will force Democrats to abandon their efforts to restore health insurance subsidies for millions of Americans—many of whom, in addition to facing doubling of their insurance premiums in the next couple of months, are the same people who are now about to go hungry due to the demise of SNAP.
The last time so many Americans suddenly found themselves without access to a stable food supply was during the Great Depression 90 years ago. It is simply impossible for food banks, pantries, religious institutions and other charities to fill such a huge hole in the nation's food security system, even if states for example California providing tens of millions of dollars to food banks and deploying National Guard personnel to help distribute food. Remove the federal government from providing SNAP benefits, and the result will be increased hunger, parents skipping meals to make sure their children eat, and increased vice rates as desperate men and women try to cobble together income from whatever sources they can to buy food.
This is not a government of or for the people. This is a crude oligarchy. The United States is now a place where billionaires finance presidential vanity projects to curry favor with those who can give or withhold government contracts, give or withhold tax breaks, and give or withhold exemptions from punitive tariffs. This is a place where masked men are paid by the government to break up immigrant families, and where the army becomes the province of private philanthropists. This is a place where the government deprives poor people of health and food benefits as they struggle to make ends meet. And we're only a fifth of the way through Trump's term.
