In a world rife with evolving national security threats, immigration policy must be more than a humanitarian exercise—it must be a firewall. Unfortunately, that firewall developed gaping holes under the Biden government, as evidenced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) June 2024 report. The report makes clear what many of us have long feared: that systemic failures in our immigration and asylum vetting process are putting Americans at unnecessary risk. Fortunately, President Donald Trump has the record and the roadmap to fix it.

The OIG’s findings paint a troubling picture.

Between October 2017 and March 2023, over 400,000 affirmative asylum applicants were not properly vetted because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) failed to fully utilize all federal databases, including critical classified data sources.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lacked access to key information to screen migrants crossing the border. This isn’t a clerical error—it’s a critical national security vulnerability, potentially allowing bad actors to exploit our follies.

EXTREME VETTING.

President Trump’s Executive Order 14161, signed in early 2025, wisely recognized this danger and moved to restore rigorous screening processes across the federal government. In contrast to the Biden era’s open-door naïveté, EO 14161 returns to the core doctrine that defined Trump’s first term: extreme vetting.

The term—coined by Trump in 2016—captured the national mood then and remains even more relevant today. But reinstating vetting protocols isn’t enough. We must fund them sustainably and fairly. The solution? Charge visa applicants from high-risk countries a supplemental fee to finance their own enhanced background checks.

Think of it as a “national security co-pay.”

If you want to enter the United States from a nation with a documented history of terrorism, failed governance, or limited identity infrastructure—Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the like—you must pay an “extreme vetting fee.” This is not a punishment; it’s policy with a purpose. The U.S. taxpayer should not be financially penalized for shouldering the costs of assessing whether a Syrian national spent the last five years working in a store or a sleeper cell.

America has finite resources. The Biden government failed to allocate or coordinate those resources, allowing asylum backlogs to balloon while scrutiny waned. Their own Inspector General literally wrote the book on the damage. Trump can fix that—not by throwing more taxpayer money into the bureaucratic bonfire–but by making the system’s users pay into it.

Some will cry foul, claiming this introduces a barrier to entry for impoverished refugees. But let’s be honest: if someone from a terrorist hotbed can’t afford an extra $200 so we can dig deeper into their background, do we want them? This is not about denying access to the truly vulnerable; it’s about denying entry to those who think of our vetting process as a box-check instead of a national security gauntlet.

And yes, deterrence has its place. If a would-be applicant from a war-torn region rethinks their plans because the vetting process is too rigorous or too costly, that’s not a bug—that’s a feature. The United States is not obligated to open its doors to every person seeking a better life. It is obligated to protect its citizens first. Every dollar we fail to spend wisely on immigration security is a dollar we may spend responding to attacks, criminal activity, or even bureaucratic chaos.

JOINING AN INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS.

Let’s also address the elephant in the policy room: even under the best conditions, verifying the identities and intentions of migrants from unstable nations is extraordinarily difficult. In Afghanistan, for example, biometric data may be inconsistent, records may have been destroyed, and corruption can undermine documentation. In Syria, passport fraud is rampant, with ISIS and other groups having exploited government printing presses to produce fake credentials. In these cases, the notion that we can vet applicants on a shoestring budget is laughable. We need not just more data, but more time, more cross-agency collaboration, and more human intelligence—all of which cost money.

President Trump understood this from the outset. His original travel restrictions in 2017, heavily criticized then, were eventually upheld by the Supreme Court because they reflected a sober assessment of risk, not an arbitrary rejection of immigrants. Critics shouted “Muslim ban” while ignoring the actual methodology: countries were chosen not based on religion, but on their ability—or failure—to provide reliable information for vetting. That principle should guide any future Trump policy, only now with added teeth: If we go to extraordinary lengths to confirm that someone is not a threat, they should help pay for that effort.

Such a policy would not be unprecedented. The United Kingdom already charges noncitizens visa fees scaled by category and risk. Australia levies surcharges for security and medical screenings. These countries understand that sovereignty is not free, and neither is safety. By implementing a risk-based pricing model for visa vetting, the U.S. would join this rational global consensus.

PAYING FOR THE LOCKS.

Moreover, this strategy would help depoliticize immigration enforcement. Instead of debating abstract quotas or arbitrary bans, we would apply an objective financial filter tied directly to risk. Want to migrate from a stable, transparent country? Fine—your visa costs stay low. Want to enter from a nation where vetting takes three times longer due to fractured civil registries and terrorist infiltration? Prepare to pay more for the privilege.

Most Americans support this kind of common-sense approach. A 2023 Pew Research poll found that 72 percent of Americans favor stronger vetting for migrants from high-risk countries, and a majority believe immigration should be tied to national interest rather than emotional appeals. The Biden government ignored this sentiment. A second Trump term must embrace it. Trump has secured our Southern Border with Mexico – now he must clean up Biden’s mess and secure our visa process.

“Extreme vetting” is not a buzzword—it’s a necessary evolution in a dangerous world. The most effective way to operationalize it is through a sustainable, self-funding mechanism that aligns with fairness, accountability, and national interest. The Trump Administration can make it official policy: If you want to come to America, you’ll have to go through the front door—and help pay for the locks.

Matt Gaetz served on the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees of the United States House of Representatives from 2017-2024. He hosts “The Matt Gaetz Show” nightly on One America News.

Image by Gage Skidmore (CC)

HOW IT HAPPENED. 

President Donald J. Trump‘s Big, Beautiful Bill has passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a single vote. Now, it heads to the Senate, where it will face significant changes before being reconciled ahead of a final vote. While the budget reconciliation bill faced opposition from a bloc of lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus and a bloc of so-called moderate Republicans from New York, an eleventh-hour intervention by President Trump brokered a compromise that cleared the way for its passage.

The final stretch to pass the Big, Beautiful Bill in the House began early Wednesday morning when the House Rules Committee took up the legislation at 1:00 AM. The committee proceeded to work almost 24 hours straight, with Democrats offering a slew of poison pill amendments that had to be voted down by Republican committee members before House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought what is called a “manager’s amendment.” The manager’s amendment contained last-minute alterations to the bill aimed at appeasing House Freedom Caucus members. At the same time, the moderate opposition had been assuaged earlier with a compromise on the legislation’s state and local tax deduction (SALT) cap.

After two major huddles with President Trump over the last two days, House Republicans, just before midnight on Wednesday, were ready to bring the Big, Beautiful Bill to the floor and begin the process for a final vote on passage. Early Thursday morning, President Trump’s budget plan, with provisions sought by both the House Freedom Caucus and the group of “moderate” Republicans from New York, passed the lower chamber in a vote of 215 to 214, with one abstention.

Only two Republicans voted against Trump’s budget plan, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH), while Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, abstained. Notably, the Democrats have lost three congressional seats since March due to the deaths of Reps. Sylvester Turner (D-TX), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), and Gerry Connolly (D-VA).

WHAT WAS IN IT?

Most of the significant provisions in the Big, Beautiful Bill, previously reported by The National Pulse, were left largely unchanged. The legislation makes the expiring provisions in the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, ensuring that Americans do not face a significant tax increase next April. Additionally, the bill still contains Trump’s campaign pledges for no taxation of tips, overtime, and social security.

However, to secure the votes of the New York Republican delegation—including Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), and Nick LaLota (R-NY)—the cap on the SALT deduction was raised further to $40,000 for single filers, though it contains phase-outs for higher income earners. Conversely, the House Freedom Caucus secured significant changes to Medicaid and food stamp programs, including the addition of new work requirements that will begin in 2026. Other significant changes from the initial bill are expedited phaseouts of the green energy tax credits enacted under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and tweaks to a bevy of more niche tax provisions, including the standard deduction.

Importantly, the budget reconciliation bill provides significant funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This will allow for a rapid expansion in the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation agents, which currently number under 6,000. Likewise, the bill also contains the bulk of the Defense Department (DoD) budget—which effectively removes a key point of leverage for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Schumer has previously threatened to hold up appropriation bills for both DHS and DoD unless Republicans meet Congressional Democrats’ discretionary spending demands. Placing the DHS and DoD budgets in the Big, Beautiful Bill prevents Schumer from acting on this leverage.

WHAT IS NEXT?

The budget reconciliation bill now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to undergo significant changes, as the dynamics and policy priorities of the upper chamber of Congress differ from the House. Two critical aspects of the House bill that will likely face changes are its overall impact on the budget deficit and changes to Medicaid.

Fiscal hawks in the Senate want more substantial budget savings, which could mean that spending cuts are brought forward in the legislation’s budget window or current cuts are expanded. However, another bloc of Republican senators, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), have publicly signaled they are less keen on cuts or major changes to Medicaid, meaning the provisions fought for by the House Freedom Caucus could be nixed in the Senate.

Over the next several weeks, or so, Senate Republicans will piece together their version of the Big, Beautiful Bill and, under budget reconciliation rules, pass the legislation by a simple majority of the chamber. Senate Democrats are unable to filibuster legislation taken up under budget reconciliation.

After passage, the House and Senate will appoint members from each chamber to serve as conferees and reconcile the two different versions of the budget legislation. Republican leaders in Congress indicate they are currently aiming to have the final, reconciled bill passed through both chambers and on President Trump’s desk for his signature by July 4. That goal could end up being pushed back several weeks, with some believing July 31 would be the latest date for passage.

📰 PULSE POINTS:

❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Trump’s flagship budget bill—meant to lock in his 2017 tax cuts and deliver more relief for workers—is moving through Congress via the reconciliation process. However, internal Republican divisions threaten to derail the plan.

👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing to pass the bill by May’s end, but Republicans like Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik want changes to the SALT deduction, while hardliners demand Medicaid cuts. Trump, meanwhile, opposes both cutting Medicaid and hiking taxes.

⚠️FALLOUT: Disagreements over SALT deductions, Medicaid cuts, and public land sales have splintered GOP unity. With Democrats unanimously opposed, the bill’s survival hinges on near-total Republican support, currently far from guaranteed.

📌SIGNIFICANCE: Without a resolution, Americans face a $4.5 trillion tax hike as Trump’s 2017 cuts expire. Failure could force Trump to oppose his own bill, risking a political embarrassment and undermining GOP midterm messaging.

IN FULL:

President Donald J. Trump’s much-touted “Big, Beautiful Budget Bill” is taking shape in Congress as the House of Representatives and Senate delve deep into the budget reconciliation process. The legislation, a budget reconciliation bill, circumvents the Senate’s filibuster rules, meaning that only a simple majority of the upper chamber is needed to pass it into law. Notably, the core content of the bill includes a permanent extension of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, additional tax relief for American workers, and funding for border security and the White House’s mass deportation program.

Currently, designated Republican lawmakers in the House are hammering out the final legislation. However, policy differences between the two chambers threaten to halt the process. While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) continues to state he intends to pass the House version by the end of May, internal House Republican disagreements over key tax provisions suggest the May deadline is overly optimistic. Meanwhile, cuts to Medicaid and a federal land sales provision are also causing consternation in the Senate.

WHAT IS A RECONCILIATION BILL?

While a reconciliation bill is more straightforward to pass through Congress than typical legislation, the process is constrained by several rules governing what can be included in the budget measure and its ultimate impact. Reconciliation bills must deal with mandatory spending, the federal government’s debt limit, or revenue measures.

According to Congressional rules, the Senate can, in theory, take up three reconciliation bills each year, dealing with each of the three subjects independently. Additionally, the legislation is subject to a provision known as the “Byrd Rule”—enacted by the late Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)—which stipulates that a reconciliation bill cannot increase the federal deficit after a 10-year budget window and cannot alter the Social Security program.

Notably, the current reconciliation bill contains critical provisions making several of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. If the bill fails, Americans would face a massive tax increase totaling $4.5 trillion over the next ten years.

THE ‘SALT’ PROBLEM. 

Negotiations over the bill have stalled because of changes made to the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction under the 2017 Trump tax cuts. Right now, the SALT deduction is limited to $10,000. This cap means that taxpayers in high-tax states—most of which have Democratic governors—can only deduct up to $10,000 of their state and local tax payments from their federal income taxes.

The SALT deduction has become a significant issue for House lawmakers. Some moderate Republicans from swing districts in Democrat-controlled states want to lift the cap on this deduction to levels in place before the 2017 tax cut. Representatives Mike Lawler (R-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), and Nick LaLota (R-NY) from New York are strong supporters of restoring the deduction. These Republican lawmakers work with House Democrats, who tried to lift the SALT cap during former President Joe Biden’s time in office but were unsuccessful.

Some conservative House Republicans want to eliminate the SALT deduction completely. They believe this deduction unfairly transfers money from low-tax Republican states to high-tax Democrat states. These lawmakers also argue that eliminating the SALT deduction could help fund new tax relief measures in the bill.

THE MEDICAID DILEMMA. 

While the debate over the future of the SALT deduction has thrown up one roadblock to the passage of President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Budget Bill,” a brewing fight over Medicaid threatens to derail the legislation entirely.

House Republicans are deeply divided over proposed cuts to the government healthcare program. Moderates and some Trump allies uphold President Trump’s promise not to slash Medicaid funding. However, conservative House lawmakers are pushing for deep cuts to Medicaid, arguing that the spending reduction is the only way to keep the reconciliation bill budget neutral, as required by the Byrd Rule.

House lawmakers must identify either $1.5 trillion in spending cuts or new revenue to cover the federal revenue loss created by making the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent. To enact new tax relief, such as Trump’s “No Tax on Tips,” “No Tax on Overtime,” and “No Tax on Social Security” proposals, the House will need to find even more spending reductions or generate new tax revenue from other sources.

President Trump has repeatedly emphasized he will not sign a budget bill that cuts Medicaid or Social Security. This pledge, and resistance among some Republican members, has left reconciliation negotiators scrambling to identify other methods to keep the legislation at least revenue-neutral. A similar divide over cuts to Medicaid exists in the Senate.

Without a consensus on addressing the government healthcare program, some lawmakers are pushing for new revenue-raising measures, such as increasing federal income taxes on top earners or upping the capital gains tax. The first idea has gained some steam among influential Republicans, though House leadership insists tax increases are a non-starter.

FEDERAL LAND SALES. 

The newest hurdle facing the reconciliation bill is a provision approved by the House Natural Resources Committee that would authorize an expansion of oil, gas, coal, and mineral leases on public lands and waters. Additionally, the committee passed a provision allowing the sale of some tracts of federal lands in Nevada and Utah. The leasing changes and federal land sales would raise an estimated $18 billion in new revenue—a small but noteworthy offset to the overall legislation’s cost.

While the leasing and land sales provisions help reduce the total cuts or revenue increases needed to keep the reconciliation bill budget-neutral, they have opened the bill to new avenues of opposition, with several lawmakers declaring them non-starters. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) has previously said that new federal land sales are a non-starter for him and that he’d oppose any bill that includes the provision. Additionally, Western state Senators in the upper chamber are drawing similar red lines to the land sales measure.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Republican House leaders say they intend to unveil a finalized reconciliation bill this coming week and aim to pass it on to the Senate by the end of the month. However, with only a narrow majority and likely uniform Democratic Party opposition, Speaker Johnson cannot afford to lose more than a handful of Republican votes. This means the significant divides over SALT, Medicaid, and federal land sales must be resolved far ahead of any final votes on passage for the reconciliation bill.

If the House negotiations continue to break down, Republican leaders may be forced to turn to President Trump to put political pressure on holdouts. However, even on that front, Trump has clarified that he will not back cuts to Medicaid. Should House conservatives succeed in slashing funding for the government healthcare program, Trump could find himself opposing his own “Big, Beautiful Budget Bill.”

President Donald J. Trump has once again thrown down the gauntlet against the corporate media—this time by taking CBS to court. His bold litigation has exposed what millions of Americans already know: the mainstream media is not a neutral institution but a political weapon used to silence, smear, and control. But we must go beyond the courtroom to move from outrage to reform. It’s time to hit fake news where it hurts most: financially.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should cap reverse retransmission fees (revenue that local TV stations pay back to their affiliated broadcast networks) at 30 percent to protect local broadcasters, lower consumer costs, and strike a decisive blow against the corrupt media cartel.

Excessive reverse retransmission fees are among the least understood but most abused levers in the modern media economy. Reforming them concretely realigns our communications infrastructure with the public interest and President Trump’s America First agenda.

HOW THEY WORK.

These fees (and ad sales) generate revenue for broadcasters that they use to run their operations and produce local journalism. However, media conglomerates like Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, have begun charging what’s known as “reverse” retransmission fees to broadcasters. The networks demand a share of broadcasters’ revenue for the right to use their content. This practice was once unheard of, but some networks now regularly require more than one hundred percent of broadcasters’ retransmission fees as “reverse” fees, leaving broadcasters to sustain themselves solely on whatever ad sales they can make with their limited inventory (also capped by the networks, and often amounts to only a few minutes of airtime per hour).

This funnels more and more money out of local markets and local journalism and into the hands of mega media corporations, who threaten broadcasters with content blackouts if they don’t get sky-high payouts.

This problem gets even worse with providers like YouTube TV and Hulu Live. Under their affiliate agreements with the networks, local affiliates can’t even negotiate for online providers to carry the content. The networks do it for them and pay the affiliates whatever they deem reasonable (sometimes, nothing). This gives the networks total control over streaming distribution while robbing local stations of revenue and autonomy in the rapidly growing online video space.

What was once a mechanism to support hometown news is now a corporate racket. Instead of investing in local reporters, meteorologists, and producers, local broadcasters’ funds are siphoned to bloated national newsrooms that churn out anti-Trump propaganda and woke talking points. Meanwhile, higher cable bills pass the cost to everyday Americans.

HIT ‘EM WHERE IT HURTS.

President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS underscores the ideological warfare these media giants are waging. They’ve abandoned any pretense of objectivity, acting instead as political operatives with studios. Capping reverse retransmission fees at 30 percent is not just a technical tweak; it’s a strategic strike on these bad actors’ financial foundations.

We must return power to the communities and stations serving the people. Local broadcasters provide vital coverage—emergency alerts, school board meetings, small business spotlights—that you’ll never find on CNN or MSNBC. They reflect the values of the towns and cities they serve. However, the incentives shift when a national corporation owns the local affiliate. Content becomes homogenized. Narratives are imported. Local journalists lose editorial independence, and viewers get New York news with a local logo slapped on top.

We limit these national behemoths’ ability to weaponize local stations as bargaining chips and ideological delivery systems by capping reverse retransmission fees. We restore breathing room for independent broadcasters and stop the endless consolidation cycle that has gutted journalism in rural and working-class communities.

The FCC can solve both of these issues.

It has the authority to cap reverse retransmission fees and rein in Big Tech and network dominance by eliminating their unfair advantage over local broadcasters. Whether through traditional cable or streaming platforms, the Commission must act decisively to level the playing field.

This reform is in the same spirit as President Trump’s efforts to break up Big Tech, bring back American manufacturing, and take on the pharmaceutical lobby. It’s a populist solution to a top-down problem. It reduces costs, decentralizes power, and reorients the system to serve the needs of regular Americans, not just media executives and political elites.

THE PUBLIC FIGHT.

Critics will claim this is “government interference.” That’s nonsense. The airwaves are public property to which the government grants broadcast licenses to companies that serve the public interest. When national corporations abuse that privilege by hoarding retransmission profits, forcing the slashing of local news staff, and pumping out politicized content, it is not only appropriate for the FCC to step in; it is necessary.

Just as President Trump stood up to China on trade, he now stands up to CBS on the truth. His lawsuit has opened a vital lane for real reform. Capping reverse retransmission fees gives that legal challenge policy teeth. It weakens the media’s monopoly, strengthens local stations, and ensures that taxpayer-owned airwaves serve the public, not the D.C. cocktail circuit.

Make no mistake: this is a fight for the soul of the American media. National networks have shown they cannot be trusted. They’ve censored stories, smeared dissenters, and openly campaigned against conservative candidates. The only remaining check on their power is at the local level, and even that is slipping away under the weight of retransmission extortion.

If we want a media that informs instead of indoctrinates and represents communities instead of manipulating them, we must go upstream to the funding model. Capping reverse retransmission fees is the cornerstone of that effort. And if the networks try to make an end-run by demanding an unfair cut in ad sales, restricting available airtime for local news and weather, or prohibiting broadcasters from trying to reach new audiences through alternative distribution channels, then the FCC should be prepared to step in and stop it.

President Trump was elected with a mandate to put the American people back in charge. Capping reverse retransmission fees does just that. It ensures your local news stays local, your cable bill stays lower, and your country remains free from corporate media control.

Let’s follow President Trump’s lead, end the fake news grift, and get to work capping reverse retransmission fees for the good of our country, our communities, and our future.

Nathan A. Simington is a Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. Gavin M. Wax is Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to Commissioner Simington and the co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’.