The Senate has passed a bill making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the U.S.'s largest interior law enforcement agency with funding for Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda higher than most of the world’s militaries, including Israel’s.
Pending its passage in the House of Representatives, Trump’s bill could mean a massive increase in ICE funding as part of an immigration enforcement agenda worth $150 billion over four years.
This figure is more than the annual military budget of Italy, which at $30.8 billion, is the world’s 16th highest defense spender for this year according to tracker Global Fire Power.
It is also higher than military spending for Israel, ($30 billion), the Netherlands ($27 billion) and Brazil ($26.1 billion).
You’re totally right, no other dictator has ever taken an oppressive position to their intelligentsia and those that remained in fascist nations have been super effective at degrading it from within… Just look at the USSR, Italy, Spain or Chile under their fascist leaders. They all were super supportive of their institutions of higher learning and those that remained stopped all kinds of atrocious government actions. They were all better off for staying put. /s