New Rules: Less Ice, More ICE

"It's the same system, wearing different uniforms, passing different policies and speaking different languages. But the harm always seems to land the same."

Author

Brad Johnson
January 21, 2026

PRESENTED BY CRUZ CONTROL

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was spotted earlier today, January 20, 2026, on a plane heading to Laguna Beach as the state of Texas braces for a rare ice threat and arctic cold front.

— Shea Jordan Smith (@sheajordansmith.bsky.social)2026-01-21T04:50:10.366Z

ICE’s budget has skyrocketed thanks to the corporate-backed One Big Brutal Bill Act, becoming the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with $85 billion now at its disposal. 32 people died in ICE concentration camps last year. A third undocumented immigrant detained at a sprawling ICE concentration camp in the Texas desert has died in the last 44 days. U.S. citizen Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales was detained for 25 days in camps in three different states while Trump lawyers questioned the veracity of her birth records; she is still wearing an ankle monitor. ICE took a U.S. citizen from his Minnesota home in his underwear after a warrantless search. ICE is headed for Maine.

More and more Americans are recognizing the crises of disappearing ice and encroaching ICE are one and the same. At a mass rally before the New Mexico Capitol on Tuesday, Jonathan Juárez, an organizer for Youth United for Climate Crisis Action, said:

“What we’re living through is not a collection of separate problems. It is overlapping crises, created by the same system, wearing different uniforms, passing different policies and speaking different languages. But the harm always seems to land the same. On our bodies, on our land, on our families and ultimately on our future.”

Accepting an award for environmental justice in MLK Jr’s honor on Monday, Billie Eilish trashed the Trump regime’s assault on our planet and its people:

“We’re seeing our neighbors being kidnapped, peaceful protesters being assaulted and murdered. Our civil rights are being stripped, resources to fight the climate crisis being cut, fossil fuels and animal agriculture destroying our planet and people's health, access to food and healthcare becoming a privilege for the wealthy, instead of a basic human right for all Americans.

It is very clear that protecting our planet and our communities are not a priority for this administration, and it's really hard to celebrate when we no longer feel safe in our own homes or in our streets.”

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans know that building up ICE and melting ice are tied together, and they’re committed to accelerating both.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, GOP are jamming forward several bills to eviscerate the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws, including one bill to grant Trump the power to exempt any “advanced manufacturing facilities” and “mining operations” from the Clean Air Act in the name of “national security” and the “AI arms race”—including wildly toxic uranium mines and chip plants.

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee is setting up a floor vote for the final FY2026 appropriations packages. The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill is separated from the Defense/Labor-Education-HHS/Transportation-HUD bill, which also has some health care tax extenders. The fiery debate has already included chief GOP appropriator Tom Cole (R-Ok.) claiming he has never heard of the private concentration-camp prison operator GEO Group and Chip Roy (R-Texas) praising the murderous Minnesota ICE rampage, which has involved straight up murder and 10,000 arrests, including abductions of dozens of U.S. citizens, for taking “20 bad people” off the streets. Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez (D-N.M.) got Cole to admit that people shouldn’t have to carry their papers with them at all times to avoid abduction by ICE.

The great climate scientist and climate-science communicator Dr. Amanda Staudt is the new executive director of the American Meteorological Society. Congrats!

Blue tit

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