The New Chains: How Trump’s Budget Turns ICE into an Engine of Modern Slavery
Inside the July 4 bill that expands ICE, revives forced labor, and redefines American freedom for the worse
“From the chain gangs of Reconstruction to the detention centers of today, America’s addiction to forced labor has never truly ended.”
On July 4, 2025, while much of the nation celebrated freedom with fireworks, beer, and patriotic songs, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the most dangerous piece of legislation America has seen in a generation. Called the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by its backers, this nearly 1,000-page budget bill was rushed through Congress with little debate and less transparency. Its real function is not to balance budgets or boost economic growth. Its purpose is to fund a system of state-enforced servitude that legal scholars are already comparing to slavery.
See: ’’Concentration Camp Labor’’ by Timothy Snyder
Beneath the noise of empty promises and false patriotism, this law lays the foundation for something far darker than most Americans can imagine. It expands ICE beyond any historical precedent, criminalizes poverty and migration, and builds the legal and logistical machinery to extract labor from detainees who have no voice and no rights. The bill does not just weaponize the immigration system. It revives the ugliest parts of our national history and gives them legal cover in the name of law and order.
This is not hyperbole. This is a warning. If we do not name it, if we do not fight it, we may find ourselves living in a nation where slavery is not just permitted by a loophole in the Constitution, but practiced openly and proudly by the state.
ICE as the New Enforcement Arm of Exploitation
The headline figures alone should stop us in our tracks. The new law allocates more than 170 billion dollars to immigration enforcement. That is more than the military budgets of all but fifteen countries in the world. It triples ICE’s annual detention budget, builds over 50 billion dollars’ worth of new border walls, and turns ICE into the single largest federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history.
This is not just about deporting undocumented immigrants. It is about detaining them in massive numbers and holding them in expanded facilities that function less like temporary shelters and more like forced labor camps. Trump has already made his intentions clear. He wants one million deportations per year. He has called for expanding the detention system and placing workers under what he calls “owner responsibility” — a term that should chill every American to the bone.
Under this model, businesses would be responsible for undocumented workers assigned to them by the government. These workers, arrested and detained, would be offered to employers on “special terms.” In plain language, this means state-facilitated human trafficking, where labor is extracted from people who are detained against their will, stripped of rights, and subjected to exploitative working conditions.
Slavery by Another Name
This system is not new. It is simply a rebranding of an old horror. After the Civil War, Southern lawmakers exploited the exception clause in the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery “except as punishment for a crime.” They passed laws criminalizing minor infractions, then leased prisoners — mostly Black men — to private employers. This system, known as convict leasing, gave rise to the chain gangs and forced labor camps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Today, legal scholars are sounding the alarm that the same dynamic is about to play out again, this time targeting immigrants. Timothy Snyder, a historian who specializes in authoritarian regimes, warned that these detention camps will be tempting sites for forced labor. He noted that undocumented immigrants make up 4 to 5 percent of the U.S. workforce and as much as 20 percent in agriculture and food processing. With the new budget, these sectors may soon be staffed not by paid employees, but by detainees whose labor can be sold to private employers for pennies.
The administration is not even hiding this. Trump’s rhetoric is blunt and cruel. He has said that employers will be responsible for these detainees and suggested that this arrangement would be more efficient than deportation. This is not immigration reform. This is government-orchestrated slavery.
Who Benefits?
The winners in this system are clear. Private prison companies will rake in billions from expanded contracts. Agricultural and industrial firms will gain access to a pool of workers who cannot unionize, cannot strike, and cannot leave. And the administration will gain a new tool to suppress dissent, reward allies, and punish perceived enemies under the guise of law enforcement.
By building this machinery under the banner of immigration policy, Trump and his MAGA loyalists have found a loophole big enough to drive a detention bus through. The federal government has wide authority over immigration. Courts have long deferred to executive power in this area. By channeling that power into ICE and removing oversight, the administration is creating a parallel justice system — one that operates outside the normal limits of due process and human rights.
This is not just about non-citizens. As Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol warned, the law is designed to target critics and opponents as well. Once this infrastructure is in place, it can be turned against anyone.
Echoes of the Past, Warnings for the Future
This should sound familiar. Nations that fall into authoritarianism often begin by targeting vulnerable populations. The tools created for controlling one group are eventually used to control others. Detention without trial. Forced labor. Surveillance and intimidation. These are not new inventions. They are the hallmarks of regimes that consolidate power through fear and force.
Today, according to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 800,000 people in U.S. prisons already perform some form of labor. About 3 percent work for private companies. They earn far below the minimum wage. Many are forced to work in dangerous conditions. This new law will vastly increase that number and expand the system to include immigrants who have committed no violent crime, and in many cases, no crime at all beyond seeking a better life.
It is important to understand that the expansion of ICE is not an isolated policy choice. It is the centerpiece of a broader strategy. The Trump administration is dismantling the structures of democracy, criminalizing dissent, and funneling public money into private hands. The goal is control, not safety. Profit, not protection.
Lies Wrapped in Patriotism
At the same time this law was signed, Trump and his administration launched a misinformation campaign to sell it to the public. The Social Security Administration sent out emails claiming the bill eliminates taxes on Social Security. It does not. It offers a temporary deduction that will benefit a small number of retirees — and only for a short time. The real economic impact is catastrophic for the working class.
The bill slashes Medicaid by nearly 900 billion dollars over the next decade. It cuts 230 billion dollars from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It removes clean energy tax credits while promoting fossil fuel development. All this, while giving nearly 80 percent of the tax benefits to the wealthiest 10 percent of households. It adds over 3 trillion dollars to the national debt and ensures that interest payments alone will consume more than a trillion dollars per year in the near future.
This is what Trump calls a “golden age.” In truth, it is a gilded cage.
Conclusion: The Time to Speak is Now
We have seen what happens when people wait too long to act. History does not forgive silence. It remembers complicity.
This new law is not just about immigration. It is about building a state that can detain, control, and exploit anyone it chooses. It is about resurrecting systems of forced labor under new names and hiding them behind red, white, and blue banners. It is about turning fear into profit and power into tyranny.
If we care about freedom, we must care about the immigrants being swept into detention. If we care about democracy, we must speak against the use of government agencies to enforce servitude. If we care about justice, we cannot be neutral while the state builds a machinery of modern-day slavery.
This is not politics as usual. This is a national emergency in slow motion. We must name it. We must resist it. And we must do so now, while we still have the right to speak, to march, and to vote.
Because if we wait, those rights may be the next ones sold.
Further Reading
’’Concentration Camp Labor’’ by Timothy Snyder