The recent Los Angeles riots have underscored the importance of Congress’ Big Beautiful Bill as a pivotal part of President Donald Trump’s law-and-order strategy, focusing on deportation of undocumented immigrants, fortifying the border, and supporting law enforcement.
Last week, violent agitators began attacking federal and local law-enforcement officers in Los Angeles.
Kissing her failed presidential dreams goodbye, Kamala Harris inaccurately described the riots as “overwhelmingly peaceful.” Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed fingers at the Trump administration for its policy of deporting criminals.
The legacy media provided aid and comfort to the rioters, as usual.
President Trump, by contrast, took action — sending the National Guard and Marines to maintain civility.
Amid the unrest, arrests were made, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continued their efforts to detain the most dangerous illegal immigrants, even at the risk to their own safety.
Yet the riots showed that as we confront the challenge of removing millions of illegal aliens, we also need to stop criminals who resort to violence to disrupt our efforts.
To do that, DHS needs more resources and manpower — specifically, more federal law-enforcement officers, more detention beds and more transportation for removals.
The One Big Beautiful Bill gets us all three.
First, the BBB will allow ICE to hire 10,000 new officers. It’ll also provide Customs and Border Protection funding for 5,000 more customs officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents.
ICE currently has 20,000 law-enforcement and support personnel in more than 400 offices. A larger force will provide ICE agents with the necessary protection so they can continue to carry out removals.
Why are more agents better? Simple: There’s safety in numbers.
These rioters are cowards who’ll keep challenging us as long as they think they can get away with it.
DHS needs to boost its manpower and resources to both remove illegal aliens and keep things peaceful in the process.
Additionally, we need more space for apprehended illegal aliens as they await deportation. The One Big Beautiful Bill funds detention capacity sufficient to maintain an average daily population of at least 100,000, double the current daily average.
This will allow the US government to safely detain more violent criminals until we can send them home.
Of course, our mission is to remove illegal aliens, not just detain them. The BBB helps with that by providing $14.4 billion for removal transportation.
As demonstrated in Los Angeles, we must also limit ICE agents’ risk exposure. Across the country, ICE agents are facing a 413% increase in assaults.
That’s why DHS uses an all-of-the-above approach.
One method, for example, is the CBP Home app, which incentivizes illegal aliens to self-deport by offering them $1,000 and a one-way flight out of the country.
No ICE agents are needed for those removals — which means no threat to their safety. It also saves taxpayers 70% per deportation.
The One Big Beautiful Bill will cut down on the number of forced deportations by funding this program and encouraging voluntary deportation via the app.
The BBB will fully fund ICE’s 287(g) program, which empowers state and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officers.
That’ll let ICE shift from defense to offense: We can pour resources into the fight against human-trafficking, smuggling, gangs, cartels and foreign terrorist organizations.
Meanwhile, successful mass deportations mean nothing if we don’t control the border and keep future illegal aliens out.
That’s why the BBB legislation also funds hundreds of miles of new border wall and water-based barriers in the Rio Grande, which will permanently secure the border for decades.
I served in Congress for almost a decade. I worked in leadership, and I passed a lot of funding bills. This one is the most important I’ve ever seen for the future of law and order.
Without it, DHS officers’ jobs will be that much harder: More rioters will be emboldened, fewer dangerous illegal aliens will be removed, our border will be more difficult to secure and our streets will be less safe.
The Trump administration will stop at nothing to secure America’s borders and Make America Safe Again. The One Big Beautiful Bill gives us the means to do that.
Kristi Noem is secretary of Homeland Security.
