Trump’s No. 1 campaign pledge hinges on GOP delivering megabill

President Donald Trump’s ability to accelerate his lagging deportations agenda hinges on congressional Republicans figuring out what they’re going to cut to pay for it.

White House border czar Tom Homan has pleaded with GOP lawmakers for more money for months as the White House has struggled to launch the mass deportation campaign the president promised. Top administration officials have been in close touch with the Hill about the figures they need to ramp up removals.

Republicans appear ready to give the White House more than officials have asked for. The House and Senate proposals would allow the committees that oversee immigration to spend between $200 billion and $350 billion — as Homan has projected the deportation effort would cost $86 billion to execute.

Republicans agree with the idea of plowing billions into the president’s No. 1 campaign pledge. But that money is out of reach, as lawmakers struggle to agree on cuts to pay for the huge increase in spending plus the extension of the tax breaks Trump signed into law during his last term. 

A Department of Homeland Security memo last month warned House and Senate Republicans that failure to pass the legislation would “undo all the Trump Administration’s Massive Successes.” And the president’s budget outline released Friday further underscored where the White House is pressuring lawmakers to land: Trump called for a 65 percent increase in funding for border security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as he’s seeking major cuts across the federal government.

“It’s No. 1 for those guys … what we want is what they want,” said House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.). “We all want to get this done … we’re going full speed.”

The funding would turbocharge ICE with an unprecedented influx of cash, allowing the Trump administration to hire thousands of more agents and expand detention capacity across the country. It would also flow to private contractors as the Trump administration looks to outsource some of the deportation process by helping track down migrants and detaining them in for-profit detention facilities.

Trump’s vow to quickly remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the country has faced a number of roadblocks. The administration has run up against a bogged-down immigration court system as well as challenges with detention space and staffing, spreading ICE agents thin as they work to deport 1 million undocumented immigrants this year — four times as many as last year.

“We should understand that until they have that money and can start to spend that money, no one should really think that they can start raising the deportation numbers that much,” said Michael Kagan, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Immigration Clinic. “They need that money, and that is the first step for expanding detention space.”

The House GOP proposal recommends tens of billions of dollars for detention facilities and the hiring and retention of immigration enforcement personnel — paving the way for the kind of historic crackdown immigration hardliners have long pushed for.

“You’re going to be able to build a wall. You’re going to have detention facilities, deportation, all of that stuff,” said Michael Hough, director of federal relations at NumbersUSA, a group that works to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. “This would be huge, historic.”

ICE says it has deported roughly 65,700 immigrants since Trump took office, though the deportation numbers have been questioned by experts. The agency has reported 66,500 arrests since January, claiming that three of four were undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

So far this year, the Trump administration’s monthly deportation pace has been lower than that of the Biden administration at the same time last year. That’s in part because it’s easier to deport people arrested at the border than those apprehended inside the country, and the number of people crossing the border has continued to plummet since Trump took office.

“They’ve had tremendous success in securing the border. We just want to make sure they can continue to do that,” said House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

But more money won’t resolve all of Trump’s challenges — and “arresting and detaining more people” does not automatically result in more removals, said Deborah Fleischaker, former acting chief of staff for ICE during the Biden administration. Home countries of many migrants — especially those who committed crimes — don’t always want to take them back. That’s part of the reason the Trump administration has entered a deal with El Salvador to accept deportees from the U.S. and is now in talks with other countries in addition.

It also takes time and resources to hire, vet and train more agents, and new detention facilities won’t be up and running overnight. The president’s rhetoric has spurred fear across communities, with many immigrants seeking legal aid and going into hiding.

“We’re a long ways away from 100,000 beds and a million removals. A million removals, that’s like 30,000 removals a week,” said an ICE official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. During “the previous three administrations, the removal stats were juiced because of all the people crossing the border. A million removals from the interior requires a million arrests. And now everyone is actively hiding and thwarting us.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has set an ambitious July 4 deadline for the passage of the GOP megabill, which they hope to enact via fast-track budget procedures that will allow them to sidestep a Democratic filibuster. A number of committees are still hammering out their plans, including politically complicated cuts to Medicaid, and the House and Senate will need to reach a consensus on their proposals.

The House Judiciary Committee proposed raising revenue via a host of new fees on those who apply through the legal immigration system, including a first-of-its-kind minimum $1,000 fee for asylum seekers and $3,500 fee for sponsors of unaccompanied children.

Democrats, for their part, have virtually no means to block the bill’s passage, assuming the GOP can stay aligned.

But unlike Trump’s first term, during which a border wall funding fight prompted the longest-ever government shutdown, Democrats have so far not focused on the immigration and border provisions in their attacks on the bill. Instead they are spotlighting the potential cuts to government programs. During a committee markup, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee were largely silent about the tens of billions of dollars the committee’s bill allocates for the border wall system.