You're looking for meaning where there is none. Fascism does not want to make sense, it very intentionally rejects reason and logic. To fascists, force and power is the only real politics. Few people really grasp how deep the nihilism of it is.

The chaos is an end in itself.

Posturing to be working hard on a solution. One that drives well with far right voters who hate foreigners.

The alternative of working on the cause instead of the symptom would put pressure on wealthy business owners and look like overreach to those voters.

It's simply part of an effort to impose moral beliefs on a world that to them, appears to work without them. Bringing order to chaos. Kind of like the Christian beliefs underpinning such cruelty.

...which is why cruelty is the point. They're getting pleasure out of hurting others. Their pleasure from torment might not be the "true" motivator - I highly doubt the people making these decisions are cackling to themselves like a comic book supervillain while coming up with novel ways of hurting people (though their brainwashed underlings might) - but they get pleasure from power and control, and are willing to pursue it at all cost, which means they do things that are cruel in order to maintain it.

To put it simply, they get pleasure from power and control, which comes at the cost of hurting others. The result is that while cruelty might not literally be the point, cruelty is the end result.