Law & Crime – The Tarbabys Blog

Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE

Associated Press

Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE

Kimberly Kindy and Amanda Seitz – July 17, 2025

Special needs teacher Deja Nebula sets up an art installation displaying names and faces of people who have been detained, deported, or sent to offshore camps during ICE raids in Southern California, at Olvera Street Plaza in Los Angeles, on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press.

The information will give ICE officials the ability to find “the location of aliens” across the country, says the agreement signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement has not been announced publicly.

The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal health data to deportation officials is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has repeatedly tested legal boundaries in its effort to arrest 3,000 people daily.

Lawmakers and some CMS officials have challenged the legality of deportation officials’ access to some states’ Medicaid enrollee data. It’s a move, first reported by the AP last month, that Health and Human Services officials said was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the program improperly.

But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE officials intend to do with the health data.

“ICE will use the CMS data to allow ICE to receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE,” the agreement says.

Such an action could ripple widely

Such disclosures, even if not acted upon, could cause widespread alarm among people seeking emergency medical help for themselves or their children. Other efforts to crack down on illegal immigration have made schools, churches, courthouses and other everyday places feel perilous to immigrants and even U.S. citizens who fear getting caught up in a raid.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon would not respond to the latest agreement. It is unclear, though, whether Homeland Security has yet accessed the information. The department’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said in an emailed statement that the two agencies “are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans.”

The database will reveal to ICE officials the names, addresses, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid. The state and federally funded program provides health care coverage program for the poorest of people, including millions of children.

The agreement does not allow ICE officials to download the data. Instead, they will be allowed to access it for a limited period from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, until Sept. 9.

“They are trying to turn us into immigration agents,” said a CMS official did not have permission to speak to the media and insisted on anonymity.

Immigrants who are not living in the U.S. legally, as well as some lawfully present immigrants, are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid program that provides nearly-free coverage for health services. Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.

But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone, including non-U.S. citizens. Emergency Medicaid is often used by immigrants, including those who are lawfully present and those who are not.

Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate moments, said Hannah Katch, a previous adviser at CMS during the Biden administration.

“It’s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid enrollees in this way,” Katch said. She said the personally identifiable information of enrollees has not been historically shared outside of the agency unless for law enforcement purposes to investigate waste, fraud or abuse of the program.

Trump team has pursued information aggressively

Trump officials last month demanded that the federal health agency’s staffers release personally identifiable information on millions of Medicaid enrollees from seven states that permit non-U.S. citizens to enroll in their full Medicaid programs.

The states launched these programs during the Biden administration and said they would not bill the federal government to cover the health care costs of those immigrants. All the states — California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado — have Democratic governors.

That data sharing with DHS officials prompted widespread backlash from lawmakers and governors. Twenty states have since sued over the move, alleging it violated federal health privacy laws.

CMS officials previously fought and failed to stop the data sharing that is now at the center of the lawsuits. On Monday, CMS officials were once again debating whether they should provide DHS access, citing concerns about the ongoing litigation.

In an email chain obtained by the AP called “Hold DHS Access — URGENT,” CMS chief legal officer Rujul H. Desai said they should first ask the Department of Justice to appeal to the White House directly for a “pause” on the information sharing. In a response the next day, HHS lawyer Lena Amanti Yueh said that the Justice Department was “comfortable with CMS proceeding with providing DHS access.”

Dozens of members of Congress, including Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, sent letters last month to DHS and HHS officials demanding that the information-sharing stop.

“The massive transfer of the personal data of millions of Medicaid recipients should alarm every American. This massive violation of our privacy laws must be halted immediately,” Schiff said in response to AP’s description of the new, expanded agreement. “It will harm families across the nation and only cause more citizens to forego lifesaving access to health care.”

The new agreement makes clear that DHS will use the data to identify, for deportation purposes, people who in the country illegally. But HHS officials have repeatedly maintained that it would be used primarily as a cost-saving measure, to investigate whether non-U.S. citizens were improperly accessing Medicaid benefits.

“HHS acted entirely within its legal authority – and in full compliance with all applicable laws – to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them,” Nixon said in a statement responding to the lawsuits last month.

King Donald? Supreme Court grants Trump power to repeal laws at his whim

The Hill – Opinion

King Donald? Supreme Court grants Trump power to repeal laws at his whim

Kimberly Wehle, opinion contributor – July 16, 2025

“The executive has seized for itself the power to repeal federal law by way of mass terminations, in direct contravention of the Take Care Clause and our Constitution’s separation of powers.”

Read that again. These are the words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissenting opinion to the Supreme Court’s one-paragraph July 14 ruling, in which the majority basically held — without any justification or explanation whatsoever — that it’s fine that America has become a land of lawlessness with power consolidated in one person.

President Trump is the law now.

The case is McMahon v. New York, and it involves Trump’s stated plan to abolish the Department of Education by basically firing half of its workforce so that it cannot function. Unlike Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn DOGE experiment, this maneuver is not even thinly disguised by the pretense of government “efficiency.” Trump just wants the Department of Education to go.

The trouble is that, as a matter of the Constitution’s core separation of powers, Congress makes the laws. In 1979, Congress enacted the Department of Education Organization Act for purposes of “ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.”

As Sotomayor explained in her dissent, which Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, “only Congress has the power to abolish the department. The executive’s task, by contrast, is to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”

By shutting down the Department of Education “by executive fiat,” Trump is blatantly intruding on the powers of the legislature to make the laws while ignoring the constitutional mandate, and his oath of office, that he duly execute those laws.

Trump’s plan ignores a bunch of other laws that the Department of Education is also responsible for executing, including laws governing federal grants for institutes of higher education; federal funding for kindergarten through high school (more than $100 billion during the 2020-2021 school year, or 11 percent of the total funding for public K-12 schools across the country); and laws banning discrimination in federally-funded schools on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex and disability.

Then there’s the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which, according to the department’s current website, “is a law that makes available a free appropriate education to eligible children with disabilities … and ensures special education and related services to those children, supports early services for infants and toddlers and their families, and awards competitive discretionary grants.” Seven million students across the country receive special education services supported by that law.

Another statute the department administers, the Elementary and Student Education Act, provides financial assistance programs to tens of millions of low-income students, too.

All of these laws are now being gutted by the stroke of Trump’s pen, as if he were a king.

There has been no public debate in Congress, no mark-ups of bills amending the law, no ability for voters to call representatives to lobby for or against proposals to amend the Department of Education and the statutes it administers. There has been no budget analyses, no media coverage of congressional horse-trading, no interviews of people from both parties on the steps of the Capitol, no hearing from public school officials or teachers or parents on whether this is a good idea.

Trump simply snatched the power to make and repeal major federal legislation and programs that affect millions of American children for himself.

Worse, the majority on the Supreme Court is letting him do it. Like Trump, it made its ruling on-the-fly and behind closed doors — without full briefing, oral argument or a written decision explaining the justices’ rationale for allowing this end run around Article I of the Constitution (which lodges the lawmaking power in Congress) and Article II (which mandates that the president take care that the laws are faithfully executed).

The majority’s silence left it to the dissenting justices once again to try and back-fill the majority’s reasoning in a dissenting opinion so that the public has some sort of record about what is possibly going on here.

Sotomayor explains that Trump, shortly after taking office, condemned the Department of Education as a “big con job” that he would “like to close immediately.” A week into her tenure, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon eliminated “nearly 50 percent of the Department’s workforce” as “the first step on the road to a total shutdown.” She closed entire offices — including the team responsible for administering bilingual education, every lawyer in the general counsel’s office responsible for K-12 education funding and IDEA grants, numerous regional offices that deal with civil rights laws and most of the office that certifies schools to receive federal student financial aid.

On March 20, Trump signed an executive order with a directive titled “Closing the Department of Education and Returning Authority to the States.” Twenty states and the District of Columbia sued, arguing that his actions violated the Take Care Clause and the Constitution’s separation of powers, incapacitating core components of the Department of Education on which the states rely. A similar lawsuit by school districts and unions followed. The cases were combined, and a district court issued an injunction preserving the status quo, keeping the department and the nation’s school system intact while the case was pending. An appeals court upheld that injunction.

Mind you, the district court issued its injunction after considering dozens of affidavits from Department of Education officials and recipients of federal funding describing how McMahon’s mass terminations have already affected the ability to pay teachers, purchase materials and equipment, and enroll students on federal financial aid — and how full implantation of Trump’s plan could be far worse. The government submitted no evidence in response.

Ignoring the record entirely, and on an emergency motion filed by the administration, the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority simply overturned the injunction, effectively handing Trump a win — just weeks before the start of the new school year — without even bothering to actually grapple with the Constitution, the lower court’s findings or the dire impacts on millions of children and young adults that rely on the department’s programs in order to get an education.

This sounds like a dystopian science fiction storyline that a bunch of Hollywood writers and producers dreamed up. But it’s real. This is Trump’s — and the Supreme Court’s — America.

Kimberly Wehle is author of the book “Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works — and Why.”

Corrupt AG Bondi

Occupy Democrats’s – June 30, 2025

May be an image of 2 people and text that says 'MAKE AMERICA MAKE GREAT AGAI +'

BREAKING: Historically corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi abuses her Justice Department power to sue Los Angeles for supposedly discriminating against ICE agents. And it gets so much worse…The MAGA-tainted DOJ is alleging that the city’s sanctuary city policies result in unfair treatment of federal immigration officers compared to other law enforcement agents. One struggles to imagine a whinier lawsuit. These fascists have no problem tearing apart families and destroying families but they fall to pieces if they’re treated with even an ounce of the disdain they so richly deserve. “Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles. Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump,” Bondi stated. In truth, the “chaos” in Los Angeles was caused by Trump violently and illegally cracking down on protestors by sending in the National Guard and Marines. He wanted violence because it allowed him to project the “law and order” strongman persona that his gullible followers love. The lawsuit, yet another shameless waste of taxpayer money from this administration, alleges that the “sanctuary city laws and policies are designed to deliberately impede federal immigration officers’ ability to carry out their responsibilities in those jurisdictions.”“The Los Angeles Ordinance and other policies intentionally discriminate against the Federal Government by treating federal immigration authorities differently than other law enforcement agents through access restrictions both to property and to individual detainees, by prohibiting contractors and sub-contractors from providing information, and by disfavoring federal criminal laws that the City of Los Angeles has decided not to comply with,” it goes on.“ The Supremacy Clause prohibits the City of Los Angeles and its officials from singling out the Federal Government for adverse treatment—as the challenged law and policies do—thereby discriminating against the Federal Government. Accordingly, the law and policies challenged here are invalid and should be enjoined,” the suit adds. As usual, we see that Republicans only really believe in states’ rights (or in this case cities’ rights) when the polities in question adhere to extreme right-wing policies. Los Angeles should be free to govern itself as it sees fit. If Angelenos correctly see migrants as law-abiding, contributing members of their communities then Trump has no right to enforce his racist worldview on them.

Thom Tillis Stands up.

Rachel Maddow – June 30, 2025

While politicians have traditionally been punished for lying, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis was punished for telling truths his party didn’t want to hear. The North Carolina senator was then effectively forced into retirement.

GOP’s Thom Tillis slams his party’s megabill after Trump forces him into retirement

John Hanno – www.tarbabys.com

We’ve known for more than a decade that this is no longer your grandfather’s Republican Party. That touch-stone is dead and buried; trump just provided the final nails in it’s coffin. Every Republican with any governing competence, integrity, empathy and loyalty to our Constitutional Democracy or to their oath of office, has been drummed out, or fled for their very lives. Tom Tillis was just the latest casualty. This MAGANAZI cult of anger, cruelty, grievance, and retribution is not satisfied with the destruction of just one of our 2 main political parties, they’re set on tearing down our entire governmental infrastructure and every Democratic institution. Nothing is safe from their anti-government nuclear bomb dropping crusade. Generations of loyal, competent government employees, scientists and researchers – gone, almost a century of international alliances – gone, many decades of racial and gender equality progress – gone, an entire lifetime of social safety net struggles ripped apart and – gone, 250 years of academic freedom, independence and enlightenment – gone, 250 years of stare decisis case law – gone, America as the moral leader and guiding light of the Democratic free world – gone, America as the economic engine of the world – gone, America as the refuge of the worlds, tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to be free – gone, America as a nation where anyone can succeed, no matter who you are, your gender, the color of your skin, your religion, or even if you’re not politically aligned with the rich and connected who hold power – gone, 250 years of credible history, two centuries of enlightened arts and literature – gone, a century of proven science, studies and research wiped clean or debunked and gone, the very idea that no matter how hard you had to struggle and sacrifice to end up in the greatest nation on earth, you could be certain that your children and grandchildren would have a freer and better life than you did – gone, the principles our Founding Fathers set forth 250 years ago, in order to free us from another diabolical Mad King and tyrannical overlords – gone, the sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation and millions of Veteran patriots since then, to preserve ours and the world’s freedom’s from self-serving fascists and narcissistic megalomaniacs, who care only about themselves and their obsession with wealth and power – gone. No one or nothing is safe from the hoards pounding on the gates of ours and the worlds Constitutional Democracies, not even the corporate leaders who have kneeled at the feet of their demented leader; just ask the hundreds of businesses who had to flee putin’s warmongering oligharchy, handing over all their corporate wealth to putin and his henchmen. These are the times that try men’s souls, and apparently Tom Tillis’s soul had had enough trying. WTFU merica

Nobody in Texas is Showing Up To Construction Sites

The Resistance:

June 28, 2025 – Bravo Taco! You are collapsing our economy one industry at a time. Racism has blinded most MAGAs to one universal truth: the backbone of our economy is immigrant labor.

Home Builder in Texas says ICE raids has ground construction to a halt, as the vast numbers of laborers are immigrants. Video:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16jZHKnHay/

John Hanno: Most Texan’s understand this, but they keep voting for the spineless republi-cons in congress, and for legislators in Texas who “ARE” the problem, and who couldn’t care less about a solution. Their elected leaders keep attacking and terrorizing the women and people of color who ARE part of the solution, and who are an asset to our nation. The question is, are their prejudices too ingrained for them to change their backwards ways? WTFU merica

Big Cypress National Preserve Detention Center

The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell – June 28, 2025

The state is building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and other temporary buildings in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which are ecologically sensitive wetlands.

Environmental groups file lawsuit to stop migrant detention center in Florida Everglades

John Hanno:

This is strictly MAGA political theater, and a gigantic boondoggle. The average cost to incarcerate a prisoner in the U.S. is probably about $75,000 per year. But these grifting morons in the trump nincompoop administration, will probably spend close to $200,000 to catch, detain and attempt to house each immigrant per year. The only ones that will benefit from rounding up hard working brown people, will be the connected trump billionaires who will get even richer, from the for profit, trump-prison-industrial-complex. And the spineless republi-con sycophants in congress, will take healthcare and food assistance away from the working poor and middle class, in order to fund this racist, fascist, ICE- Homeland Security Department nonsense. WTFU merica

ICE could ‘run out of money next month’ and is already $1bn over budget to carry out Trump’s deportation plans

The Independent

ICE could ‘run out of money next month’ and is already $1bn over budget to carry out Trump’s deportation plans

Gustaf Kilander – June 17, 2025

Immigration and Customs Enforcement could run out of money as soon as next month amid the Trump administration’s ramped-up efforts to deport unauthorized immigrants.

While there are more than three months left in the fiscal year, one estimate has found that the agency is already $1 billion over budget, according to Axios. Legislators in both parties have raised concerns about the speed at which the agency is spending its funds, which may prompt President Donald Trump to seek additional funds from other agencies to support his deportation efforts.

Lawmakers have stated that the department responsible for ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, overseen by Secretary Kristi Noem, could violate the law if it continues to spend at current levels.

The spending situation has created extra pressure to pass the “Big, Beautiful Bill” in Congress as it would hand ICE an additional $75 billion over the next half-decade. Some lawmakers have argued that DHS and ICE are wasting money.

The top Democrat on the DHS appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said, “Trump’s DHS is spending like drunken sailors.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has overspent its funds as it works to detain thousands of unauthorized immigrants each day. Estimates are that it is already $1 billion over budget. (AP)

The money crunch comes as the Trump White House is demanding that ICE agents detain 3,000 immigrants a day, levels the agency has yet to reach.

DHS has about 41,000 beds in its detention facilities, which are over capacity, and the department is looking for further detention space both in the U.S. and abroad.

Trump may declare a national emergency to send money to ICE from other parts of the government. In 2020, he used the measure to use $4 billion of the Pentagon’s money to fund his border wall.

A former budget official told Axios: “I have a feeling they’re going to grant themselves an exception apportionment, use the life and safety exception, and just keep burning money.”

University of Houston Law Center professor and former Defense Department attorney Chris Marisola told the outlet that “You could imagine a new emergency declaration that pertains to interior enforcement that would trigger the same kind of emergency personnel mobilization statutes.”

He added that “These statutory authorities authorizing the president to declare emergencies” unlock “a whole host of other authorities for these departments and agencies [that] are often written incredibly broadly and invest a lot of discretion in the president.”

The Trump White House has been trying to increase its power over the federal budget by overspending the budget of DHS, and the Office of Management and Budget has ceased sharing publicly how much money it’s spending across the government. The administration has also stopped agencies from spending funds appropriated by Congress for a number of programs.

DHS recently took the step of moving nearly $500 million from within its own funds to support its immigration clampdown. However, the agency has requested an extra $2 billion to meet its needs by the end of September.

The money crunch comes as the Trump White House is demanding that ICE agents detain 3,000 immigrants a day, (REUTERS)

Lawmakers have noted that DHS could run out of money as soon as July, which would violate the Antideficiency Act, which bans agencies from obligating or spending federal funds that have not been congressionally appropriated. Although no one has been previously charged under the Act, agency officials may face criminal charges or fines.

Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, told Axios that “President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is critical to ensure we have the funding to secure our homeland for generations and deliver on the American people’s mandate for safety and security.”ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement

The top Republican on the House DHS appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, told Axios that “we’re watching” the Senate budget negotiations.

“If there’s much of a hiccup in that, those concerns are all capital ‘C’ concerns,” he said.

Murphy added: “They are spending likely in the neighborhood of a billion dollars more at ICE than we authorized, and that’s patently illegal.”

“They cannot invent money. They cannot print money. They don’t have the money to spend that they’re spending,” he said.

Grifter in Chief

May be an image of text that says 'Hey MAGA: Trump's net worth gained $2.9 billion since inauguration. Remember that when you lose your Medicaid.'

Only the Senate can stop the largest wealth transfer in US history

The Hill – Opinion

Only the Senate can stop the largest wealth transfer in US history

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), Opinion Contributor – June 9, 2025

Last week, the House Republican majority passed what can only be called their “Big Billionaire Bill” — a budget reconciliation measure that amounts to one the largest transfers of wealth in American history.

This measure literally steals from the poor and the working class to give to the ultra-rich. As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, I know firsthand how this bill would take from working people and give to the ultra-wealthy. The consequences will be staggering if it becomes law.

Republicans promised tax cuts for all. But under their bill, families making $30,000 or less will actually pay approximately $20 billion more in taxes cumulatively over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. That’s not even counting the impact of losing Medicaid or the higher cost of living caused by Trump’s tariffs. Meanwhile, billionaires will pocket an average tax break of $255,000 a year.

I grew up working class, working jobs at Target and Subway. Republicans want to make people like me believe that they’re helping while raising taxes on them, cutting Medicaid and SNAP, and then telling them to have more babies. That’s insulting.

My Republican colleagues moved their second attempt at a House Budget Committee hearing to the dead of night — after a failed first try and following late-night markups in several committees the previous week. Alongside my Democratic colleagues, we spent nearly 30 hours grinding their agenda nearly to a halt, from Wednesday at 1 a.m. to to 11 p.m. in the Rules Committee and on the floor. The fact that they had to move their last hearing before it could move to the floor at 1 a.m. tells me they’re ashamed of themselves. And they should be.

Working families want billionaires to pay their fair share, not to lose their health care and nutrition programs for their kids. I hear it from Americans at town halls, on social media, and even at the grocery store. Millions across the country could lose Medicaid coverage: 3.4 million in California, 400,000 in North Carolina, 250,000 in Minnesota, 380,000 in Texas, 390,000 in Virginia, and 1.2 million in New York — moms, kids, and seniors who could be left without health care.

These are real people in every district, many represented by Republicans who voted for this bill. Nearly half of new moms and their babies in California rely on Medicaid and could lose their care. Seniors who can’t get enough coverage through Medicare will lose. Sons and daughters who can’t afford their parents’ nursing home care will lose. People in rural communities, where hospitals are already closing, will lose too.

Republicans claim to be the party of families. But their bill makes it harder for working people to get by — harder to welcome a new child, get postpartum care, or afford basic medical needs. Worse, Republicans will make it harder for millions of families to afford groceries every month thanks to cuts to nutrition assistance programs. When billionaires can get richer at the expense of working families, what does that say about us as a nation?

I fear America’s promise of hope and opportunity will dim if this administration keeps pushing us to the point where no one sees a future here anymore.

But I refuse to accept a future where America’s greatness is measured by the size of its tax breaks for billionaires instead of the strength of our working families. I call on the Senate to reject this bill and protect the American Dream for everyone.

Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat, represents California’s 34th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The huge banner of a glaring Trump in front of the USDA is a literal sign the U.S. has lost its democracy

The Advocate

The huge banner of a glaring Trump in front of the USDA is a literal sign the U.S. has lost its democracy

John Casey – May 16, 2025

Donald Trump official presidential portrait

A colossal, brooding image of Donald Trump now looms over the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters in Washington, D.C. The banner is unmistakably authoritarian in both style and scale. It features a stone-faced Trump gazing down upon the capital like a watchful overlord.

This is not a campaign advertisement. It is a signal. A warning. A literal and metaphorical sign that democracy in America is no longer functioning as intended.

Historically, such displays of obnoxiousness have not heralded democratic renewal. Quite the opposite. They’ve marked the entrenchment of dictatorship. Authoritarian regimes the world over have relied on these massive visual monuments to instill fear, demand obedience, and project omnipresence.

For decades, and most especially during World War II, Stalin’s steel-eyed portraits towered over Soviet streets and public buildings, reminding citizens that the state saw everything. Mao Zedong’s image hung from Tiananmen Gate like a secular deity watching over the masses. It was massive, larger than life, eternal, aloof for a reason..

History books and other visions etched in my memory bring images of Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and of course Hitler, who all followed the same playbook. They saturate public space with the leader’s face and saturate your mind with the leader’s authority.

Imagine, for a moment, if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had plastered massive banners of his face across Washington during World War II. Hanging a 30-foot portrait from the Treasury Building or looming over war bond posters with cold, impassive eyes. The public would have been outraged. Congress would have rebelled. Even amid war, Roosevelt respected the distinction between democratic leadership and personal cult.

Trump has now joined this visual canon of despots with his banner brooding over a government institution. It is not just “deeply creepy,” as some observers have said. It is the textbook behavior of a man who believes the state belongs to him. It is fascist iconography, domesticated.

This chilling banner didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Since being sworn in for his second term on January 20, Trump has governed not as a president but as a ruler unbound by law, or at least he thinks he’s unbound by law.

His Department of Justice has been purged of independence, its prosecutors reassigned or fired if they resisted Trump’s will. And don’t even get me started about the “yes, yes, yes” attorney general, Pam Bondi, who is a perfect lackey for the wannabe dictator. No to Trump in not in her vocabulary.

Trump’s suggestion that he should be allowed a third term because one was supposedly “stolen,” is no longer a fringe fantasy. It’s a real and present threat, floated not only at rallies and interviews but by White House aides and conservative media outlets that now function more like state-run propaganda than independent journalism.

He has declared that federal workers must show “personal loyalty” to him. Inspectors general and career civil servants have been removed en masse and replaced with unqualified loyalists. Programs that support education, public health, and environmental protection have been gutted in favor of funding massive security forces that answer directly to the Executive Branch.

And his takeover of the Kennedy Center, his chosen board of directors, naming himself as chairman, is just another check-mark on the autocrat bucket list and that is control of the arts.

Meanwhile, efforts to erase and rewrite history are accelerating. Trump’s allies are systematically removing references to slavery and civil rights from textbooks, recasting the January 6 insurrectionists as “patriots,” and purging LGBTQ+ references from public libraries. This is not governing. It’s regime-building, complete with a giant portrait.

As Trump’s face stares down from the side of a federal agency building, it’s a 30-foot reminder of who is in charge, who is watching, and who cannot be questioned.

This use of personal imagery as a weapon of psychological control is not just about ego, and it’s a key mechanism of authoritarian rule. During Stalin’s Great Purge, his image became synonymous with the state itself. To criticize Stalin, even in private, was to invite arrest, or worse.

Saddam Hussein commissioned thousands of portraits of himself, placing them in every school, airport, and office in Iraq. The size and frequency of his image sent a clear message that this country was his.

So too with Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong il, and his son Kim Jong Un. whose portraits are reportedly required in every home in North Korea, and most people clean them on a regular basis. Disrespecting the image is a punishable offense.

These leaders understood something simple but potent: Symbols shape reality. And control of the visual environment is control of the collective psyche.

The USDA banner is not just gaudy or excessive. It’s strategic. It’s authoritarian. It’s a message not just to the public but to the bureaucracy itself that loyalty flows up, power flows down, and both are enforced with fear.

Democracy depends on a humble, limited executive, and while we’ve had some egomaniacs as president here in the U.S. (think Richard Nixon), we’ve been fortunate not to have one who plasters banners of himself outside of government buildings.

Our presidents have been elected, not enthroned. They serve, not rule. The placement of a massive Trump banner on a government building reveals that this line has been crossed, and we are no longer a republic. We are living under the cult of one man.

When the government starts using public property to display the ruler’s image, when dissent is criminalized, when history is rewritten and power is centralized, we are not looking at the future. Instead, we are seeing the end of something. The end of accountability. The end of democratic pretense. The end of America as we knew it.

The banner may yet come down. But the damage it represents is already done.

Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.