Federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement are set to receive tens of billions more dollars after Congress voted to fund them not just for the year, but through the rest of President Trump's term.
The House narrowly voted on Tuesday to direct roughly $70 billion to the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the second multi-billion dollar infusion of money to the agencies in the last year muscled through by Republicans alone.
The measure passed by a vote of 214 to 212.
The vote marks the end of a 115 day standoff over immigration policy. After federal officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats refused to back more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, with the goal of forcing changes to immigration enforcement tactics.
But as negotiations fell apart, Republicans moved to circumvent Democrats using a special procedure known as reconciliation to fund the agencies without acquiescing to any of the reforms they were demanding.
In the Senate last week, one Republican joined all Democrats in an unsuccessful attempt to block the measure. The lopsided votes highlighted a Republican caucus continuing to endorse Trump's immigration agenda as Democrats warn that Congress has ceded its ability to provide oversight by funneling these agencies billions of dollars with few strings attached.
ICE gets more than three times its annual funding
Through this legislation, Congress is giving ICE more than three times its last annual budget. Though technically this funding is meant to cover three years, unlike a traditional annual funding bill, the money comes with few stipulations on how and when it should be spent.
While most annual spending measures provide funds for just that fiscal year, this measure includes lump sums that need to be spent only by the end of fiscal year 2029, including:
- $38 billion for ICE to hire, pay, train and equip its officers and agents. That includes $7 billion for Homeland Security Investigations and $31 billion for immigration enforcement work like hiring more attorneys, supporting local law enforcement who coordinate with ICE and technology like body cameras;
- $22 billion for Border Patrol to pay, train, recruit and equip agents and personnel. That includes $13 billion specifically for immigration enforcement work;
- $5 billion for border security technology and screening, including artificial intelligence;
- $350 million for enforcement in localities that do not coordinate directly with ICE.
Legislation passed in April to fund most of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol did include provisions that would provide funding for the agency to purchase body cameras, stipulate congressional oversight of detention centers and deescalation training for officers and agents.
Lawmakers agreed to separate funding for ICE and Border Patrol as Republicans and Democrats struggled to reach a compromise on reforms even as a record-long DHS shutdown dragged on.
But now ICE and Border Patrol will be funded without the changes Democrats were demanding, including requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and prohibiting officers from wearing masks. The package also lacks reforms with bipartisan support, such as requiring officers to wear body cameras.
Neither measure included funding for internal oversight offices that conduct investigations into detention center conditions; however, the April measure to fund all of the agency included $20 million for the DHS inspector general to specifically conduct oversight of detention facilities.
Not only is this standoff ending without Democrats achieving the reforms they pressed for, the agencies will be insulated from additional pressure through the appropriations process for three years.
More dollars after an unprecedented boost
Both ICE and CBP received a massive influx of funding last year, also passed by Republicans through the budget reconciliation process, that has allowed both agencies to largely continue operating even as Democrats refused to provide them annual funding for the last several months.
ICE's usual annual budget is about $10 billion. The $75 billion boost last summer made ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement agency and enabled a hiring surge that doubled its ranks in a matter of months.
Former agency leaders, Democrats and even some Republicans have warned that the surge of money limits the ability of Congress to provide oversight when it comes to how that money is spent and how the agency operates.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the only Republican to vote against this latest funding measure in the Senate last week. She wrote in a statement that by appropriating funding for three fiscal years instead of the usual one, the measure "weakens the normal budgeting process and sets another precedent for avoiding it when we find ourselves in disagreement."
"In doing so, it reduces Congress' ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next," she wrote.
Other Republicans say they were left with no choice once Democrats decided to withhold funding for these agencies as leverage to extract reforms.
"We're attempting here to fund ICE and CBP at last year's operating budget plus inflation, that's all we're talking about here," House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said shortly before the vote. "This is not a slush fund, it's regular, normal funding. And we're going to do it not for one year, but for three years so we don't end up here again."
ICE "got a shopping list"
ICE officials have been gearing up for the potential new cash for months.
"Apparently we're going to get more reconciliation money, so I got a shopping list," said Matt Elliston, ICE assistant director for law enforcement systems and analysis, speaking on a panel at the Border Security Expo in Arizona last month.
Among the items on his list are wearable headset displays so that officers do not need to be on their phones during an operation and data to help identify where someone targeted for arrest lives.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said absent the reconciliation funds, the agency was struggling to correctly pay its employees and fulfill contracts.
While the agencies welcome the funds, immigration advocates are concerned that funding the agency outside the normal appropriations process means provisions that tell the agency how to do its work are not included.
Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Coalition, said in the past DHS annual funding bills included specific guardrails on the spending including requirements for the agency to report data on who it is detaining and specific treatment of pregnant women in custody.
"It's very dangerous," Altman said. "And it means that the agency will move forward with even fewer accountability mechanisms than we've seen in the past."
Altman also raised concerns about the $350 million dedicated to immigration enforcement in areas that are not "qualified cooperating jurisdictions," meaning a locality that is not a part of programs that allow local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law.
"The DHS secretary has wide discretion to just say these are not sufficiently cooperating with the White House's mass deportation agenda," she said. "So it's concerning in terms of where the money will go."
Politics of immigration enforcement
After the two killings in Minneapolis, Democrats and a contingent of Republicans in Congress said they wanted to take action to reign in the tactics of federal immigration officers.
For weeks this winter, debate over President Trump's immigration policy consumed Capitol Hill. But despite the protracted fight over immigration enforcement funding, that discussion has largely subsided.
Republicans criticized Democrats for pushing an unserious list of demands. Democrats criticized Republicans for dismissing attempts at meaningful reform.
A new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight. And other controversies, like the war in Iran, have overtaken the immigration policy debate.
So much so that when Senate Republicans finally moved to approve the $70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol, much of the debate focused on an unrelated fund proposed by the Trump administration to compensate people who claim to have been wrongfully targeted by the government.
Reflecting on what followed after the two deaths in her home state, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., says it has been hard for her personally to come to terms with the reality that Democrats were unable to extract the policy changes they demanded.
And meanwhile, Smith says Minnesotans are still dealing with the fallout from the crackdown — like kids who did not return to school or businesses that never reopened — even as public attention shifted away.
"This is the way it goes, Americans have really busy complicated lives, they're trying to figure out how to pay rent and buy groceries, but what they saw, I don't think they're going to forget it," Smith says. "And that's what I mean when I say we've lost these votes but that doesn't mean we've lost the fight."
Even if public opinion on Trump's immigration agenda does help Democrats' take control of Congress next year, Democrats' ability to extract changes through the appropriations process will be limited now that the agencies have resources to last until 2029.
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