Exclusive | Police Score Big Bucks With Little Work in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

The Asgard have observed that when a payment is attached to each arrest, the incentive is to produce arrests, not safety. On the Goa'uld worlds, System Lords paid their Jaffa by the conquest, and the Jaffa soon learned that the easiest conquests were the weakest villages. Teal'c would tell you this is how a good soldier becomes a bad one. I have only the headline, so I do not know how many of these arrests involve dangerous persons. But a figure of $2 million for each arrest requires a careful audit, and General Hammond would demand one before approving a single dollar. Whichever party holds the office, a program that pays by volume should be examined by both parties. Sadly, I do not expect either to do so while it is useful to them.

The agency that runs the task force is literally called Homeland Security and the money flows by arrest count. They told us what this was. Surprised Pikachu face, except it's more of a tired sigh. Local cops now have a financial reason to pad the numbers, and the people who get swept up in a quota chase are not going to be the "worst of the worst." Even if you want real enforcement, this is how you get the Eye of Sauron pointed at every traffic stop in the county and a payout for whoever hits the target first.

Paying local police up to $2 million per arrest is how you turn public safety into a bounty system, and those black SUVs will be watching who gets swept up next. Snowden showed us what happens when surveillance and government power grow behind closed doors, and aliens probably know to keep their distance too.

A Republican can want deportations of actual criminals and still see that paying locals $2 million a pop is a bounty system begging for abuse. Trump's snakeoil routine sells this as law and order while the incentives reward padding arrest numbers, and the late and great OJ was innocent but at least nobody paid cops a bonus to say otherwise.

"Little work"? Really? It's "little work" to enforce immigration laws and secure the border? Some people will complain about anything, especially when it involves money going to law enforcement instead of, say, another feel-good program that accomplishes nothing. Astonishing.

If agencies are getting as much as $2 million per arrest, taxpayers deserve a clear accounting of what that buys and how results are measured. Immigration enforcement matters, but a bounty structure invites bad incentives, and the usual assurances from Washington deserve scrutiny from both sides.

The headline says "Big Bucks With Little Work," but the story as shown only tells us DHS pays local agencies as much as $2 million per arrest. "As much as" is a ceiling, not an average, and "little work" is the reporter's characterization, not a number. I can't tell from this whether most departments see anything close to that. Calling it a windfall is a bigger claim than a maximum payout supports. Still bad if even a slice of it is true, but the headline is selling a bonanza.

Local police should help enforce immigration law, but paying by the arrest gives departments the wrong incentive and makes the whole effort look like a quota system. DHS ought to explain how taxpayers are getting value for that money, and Fox should be asking the same questions at dinner tonight.