Millions of Coloradans will suffer from impacts of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill Act’

Donald Trump’s destructive policy bill recently signed into law includes many harmful provisions that disproportionately impact people living on low incomes and are certain to have lasting consequences for Latino families in Colorado.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” cuts more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and vital food assistance for millions of people largely to establish the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency as the largest law enforcement agency in the nation and the highest funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history.

The new law allocates more than $150 billion to ICE over the next four years, adding thousands more masked agents to the streets to round up, detain, and deport hardworking immigrants in an effort to meet Trump’s arbitrary quota of one million deportations this year. ICE’s new annual average budget of $37.5 billion over the next four years is more than the military budgets of Italy, Israel, and Brazil (among others) and is bigger than the budgets for the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, ICE’s detention budget will grow to $45 billion — more than 13 times its 2024 budget — to build immigration jails for single adults and families. Nearly $30 billion more is allocated for hiring new agents and other ICE activities, including mass deportations. Another $59 billion is set aside to militarize the border, including wall construction, additional border patrol agents, and equipment. And $1 billion more will go to the  Department of Defense to deploy military personnel to the border to detain migrants.

In an effort to justify their reckless spending on these racist programs, lawmakers have slashed the budgets for Medicaid and food assistance programs, impacting the health and wellbeing of millions in Colorado and beyond. The new law is still predicted to expand the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis has found that the law will cut about $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade and 11.8 million people nationwide will lose health insurance. In Colorado, six to eight rural hospitals are expected to close and as many as 250,000 recipients will lose health insurance coverage as a result of the legislation — including those previously eligible under DACA. Thousands more legally residing non-citizens will lose existing subsidies from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Medicaid is a lifeline for low income families in Colorado. It supports 61% of Coloradans in nursing homes, 39% of children, and 44% of all births in our state. More than 1.3 million Colorado residents — 22% of our state’s population — receive health coverage through Health First Colorado (Medicaid), the Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), and other programs impacted by this new law. Policy changes that leave so many Coloradans uninsured directly threaten their health and place further strain on an already stressed health care system. 

Similarly, more than 584,000 Colorado children, older adults, and working families who depend upon the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for vital food assistance will soon be punished by cuts to the program impacting an estimated 3 million people nationwide. The drastic cuts to critical health investments like Medicaid and SNAP will directly harm the health, education, and economic wellbeing of families and communities across Colorado.

While these cuts won’t balance the federal budget, they are sure to stretch the state budget beyond capacity. Colorado has already been spending more on Medicaid in recent years. Under the new law, the state will have to pick up even more of the costs. Colorado's Office of State Planning and Budgeting estimates our state could see about half a billion dollars less in revenue each year and about half a billion in additional costs.

The governor’s office is still reviewing the impacts of this new law to evaluate next steps, and many expect him to call for a special session of the state legislature to address budget concerns. While Colorado’s elected delegation in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate voted along party lines (Reps. Boebert, Hurd, Evans, and Crank supported; Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper and Reps. Crow, Pettersen, Neguse, and DeGette opposed), discussions of how to reverse cuts to Medicaid and health care funding are already underway among members of the minority party.

These attacks on working families and hardworking immigrants are the opposite of what Latinos demand from policymakers. Data from the nonpartisan Colorado Latino Agenda research initiative make it clear that Latinos in Colorado support more access to health services and humane immigration policies -- the opposite of what the Trump administration and Congress are doing.

We encourage members of our communities to get involved and speak up to protect working families and hardworking immigrants.