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The House of Representatives today narrowly passed a massive tax and spending reconciliation bill that now heads to President Trump’s desk. Please see below for a statement from ITEP and our latest updated analysis of how the bill’s tax provisions will affect families at different income levels nationally and in every state.
STATEMENT from AMY HANAUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE ON TAXATION AND ECONOMIC POLICY:
“This abominable bill will make history – in appalling ways. Never before has legislation taken so much from struggling families to give so much to the richest. It makes the biggest cuts to food aid for hungry families, executes the largest cuts to health care ever, adds trillions to the national debt – all to give $117 billion to the richest 1 percent in a single year. It’s no wonder that this bill is also extremely unpopular. Historians – and voters – will look back at this as a dark day in U.S. history.”
BY THE NUMBERS:
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Senate Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates
The megabill’s tax impact is highly regressive, a regressivity that is amplified by the legislation’s deep cuts to health care, food assistance, and other services:
Founded in 1980, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, based in Washington, DC, that focuses on federal and state tax policy. ITEP's mission is to inform policymakers and the public of the effects of current and proposed tax policies on tax fairness, government budgets, and sound economic policy. ITEP's full body of research is available at www.itepnet.org.
“Can’t we just say no to Trump for once?" asked Mayor Giuseppe Sala.
The mayor of Milan, which is set to host the 2026 Winter Olympics starting February 6, was not convinced Tuesday by assurances that US immigration officials fulfilling security duties at the games will only be providing protections for top US officials.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, said Giuseppe Sala, "are not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about it."
Sala's comments came after the US Embassy in Rome confirmed an official statement from ICE saying that federal officers are scheduled to provide "diplomatic security" during the Milan Cortina games—days after US immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, the third US citizen killed by employees of the Department of Homeland Security in less than four weeks.
ICE has also garnered international outrage with its detention of people without criminal records even as President Donald Trump's administration continues to claim it is working to deport the "worst of the worst violent criminals," and particularly its abduction of young children including 5-year-old Liam Ramos, 7-year-old Diana Crespo, and 2-year-old Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis.
Two Italian journalists were also threatened by ICE agents on Sunday while they were reporting on immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, with the officers telling them, "This is your only warning, if you keep following us, we will break your window and we will pull you out of the vehicle.” Filming and observing ICE agents, as long as one is not interfering with their operations, is a protected right under the US Constitution.
ICE told Al Jazeera that "obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries,” but Sala suggested that it was not entirely obvious that officers with the agency would not perpetrate violence at the Olympics.
Officers with ICE, he told RTL 102.5 radio, "don’t guarantee they’re aligned with our democratic security management methods."
“This is a militia that kills,” he added. “Can’t we just say no to Trump for once?"
ICE told Agence France-Presse that ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department will be "supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations."
“All security operations remain under Italian authority," said the agency.
If mitigating risks is the goal, said Alessandro Zan, a member of European Party representing Italy's Democratic Party, "it's paradoxical to entrust it to those who are the first to commit crimes, operating with violence, and killing innocents in cold blood."
"In Italy, we don't want those who trample human rights and act outside any democratic control," said Zan. "It's unacceptable to think that an agency of this kind could have a role, whatever it may be, in our country."
HSI typically investigates "the illegal movement of people, goods, money, contraband, weapons, and sensitive technology into, out of, and through the United States," according to its website.
The Associated Press reported that HSI is among the federal agencies that have helped provide security for US officials at previous Olympic games.
In Milan, the US delegation attending the February 6 opening ceremony will be led by Vice President JD Vance, along with Second Lady Usha Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Sala told RTL that the city "can take care of their security ourselves. We don’t need ICE.”
Renew Europe, a centrist group within European Parliament, added that it is "not acceptable" for ICE officers to be welcomed in Milan as the agency carries out a violent immigration crackdown across the US.
The Green and Left Alliance (AVS) and Azione, two Italian opposition parties that counter the right-wing government, have started petitions calling on officials to bar any agents with ICE from involvement with security operations at the Milan Cortina games.
La Repubblica reported that the Italian government considered blocking ICE from attending the games as part of the security detail, but declined to do so.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said Zan, "should clearly state what is happening and provide guarantees that Trump’s political police will not set foot in our country."
"ICE messed with the wrong profession. We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community."
The largest union of nurses in the United States is holding protests across the country this week to protest the killing of one of their own, Alex Pretti, by federal officers in Minneapolis and to demand the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents are terrorizing communities nationwide.
Demonstrations organized by National Nurses United (NNU) have been planned in more than a dozen states—from California to Florida to New York—as grassroots backlash against the Trump administration's lawless mass deportation efforts, detentions, and violent crackdowns on dissent continue to mount.
"Pretti's death will not be in vain. ICE messed with the wrong profession," NNU said in a statement. "We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community."
NNU, which represents more than 225,000 nurses in the US, said in the hours after Pretti's killing that federal agents "have executed one of our fellow nurses, Alex Pretti, who saved veterans’ lives as an intensive care unit RN for the Veterans Health Administration."
"He not only advocated for his patients inside the VA as a member of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), but also took his advocacy to the streets to stand up for his community as nurses do," the union said. "We demand justice and accountability for his murder."
While demanding ICE's elimination as a federal agency, the nurses' union is also pushing senators to oppose any government funding legislation that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE.
"Call your senators and tell them to oppose any appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security Appropriations bill," NNU wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. "Congress must not give a penny to ICE. Our taxpayer dollars must not be used to murder and terrorize our communities!"
URGENT: Call your senators and tell them to oppose any appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security Appropriations bill.
Congress must not give a penny to ICE. Our taxpayer dollars must not be used to murder and terrorize our communities!
☎️ 202-998-6094 ☎️ pic.twitter.com/h3i7iMvZPD
— National Nurses United (@NationalNurses) January 27, 2026
Ahead of a possible government shutdown at the end of the week, the US Senate is set to consider a legislative package that includes six appropriations bills, including a $64.4 billion DHS funding bill that contains $10 billion for ICE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said Democrats won't provide the votes Republicans need to advance the appropriations package if the DHS bill is included.
Members of the Senate Democratic caucus are demanding that the DHS funding be stripped from the broader appropriations package and considered on its own, along with concrete reforms to ICE.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a close ally of union nurses, put forward a series of demands on Monday, including repeal of the $75 billion ICE funding that Republicans and President Donald Trump approved last summer, unmasking of ICE agents, and immediate removal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota and Maine.
"ICE is out of control, ignoring the law and our Constitution,” said Sanders. “Congress must vote NO on any additional funding for DHS."
In his order, US District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz cited "dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks."
Minnesota’s chief federal judge has ordered a top Trump administration immigration enforcement official to appear in person by the end of the week or else potentially be held in contempt of court.
In an order published on Monday, US District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons personally appear in his courtroom on Friday to "show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court."
Schiltz acknowledged that ordering the acting head of a federal agency to appear in person was an "extraordinary step," which he said was justified by "the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders."
As an example, Schlitz pointed to ICE's failure to comply with a January 14 order to grant a detained immigrant a bond hearing within a week or release him from custody. More than a week after this order was issued, Schiltz wrote, the immigrant's counsel informed the court that their client is still being detained despite not being granted a hearing.
"This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks," Schlitz explained.
Schlitz then cited repeated past assertions from ICE attorneys that the agency recognizes it must comply with court orders, insisting that they have "taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward."
"Unfortunately, though, the violations continue," Schlitz wrote. "The court's patience is at an end."
As noted in a Tuesday report from the Washington Post, several recent rulings in immigration cases have "expressed frustration over the government’s tactics and posture in court," including Schlitz recently sending "an exasperated letter to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, questioning unusual moves by government officials to charge demonstrators involved in a church protest in St. Paul."