Republicans Find a Way to Give ICE Even More Money—and Less Oversight
Senate Republicans are looking to funnel nearly $70 billion with absolutely no strings attached to Donald Trump’s lawless immigration enforcement campaign.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley unveiled the legislative text Monday night for the Republicans’ reconciliation package, directing $38.2 billion to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The bill also allocates $26 billion for offices under Customs and Border Protection, including $3.5 billion for border security technology and screening, according to Punchbowl News.
Meanwhile, another bill from the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee would provide an additional $32.5 billion, bringing the total package for immigration enforcement to roughly $69.2 billion, with ICE set to receive approximately $38.2 billion, according to Migrant Insider.
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy for the Center for American Progress, warned on X Monday night that these funds had “enormous flexibility, with far less accountability or oversight than typical annual appropriations for DHS funding has.”
Senate Republicans have framed this massive expenditure as giving ICE and CBP enough funds to be shutdown-proof until the end of Trump’s term. But in reality, ICE already had twice as much funding as it needed to run from the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July. Now ICE has roughly four or five times the amount of funding it needs to run until 2029, while CBP only has the funds to make it to 2027, according to Kogan.
There do not appear to be any offsetting cuts to pay for this bill.
Since Trump launched his sweeping immigration crackdown, American voters have borne witness to federal immigration agents’ use of threats and intimidation, excessive force, warrantless searches or arrests, racial profiling, and wrongful detentions. ICE has detained hundreds of children, and families of mixed legal status are being regularly torn apart by the administration’s relentless immigration crackdown. Federal immigration agents were also responsible for the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
Rather than reform these federal agencies, Senate Republicans are choosing to write them a blank check using taxpayer dollars.