The Department of Homeland Security is set to receive a substantial financial boost, with Congress approving a nearly $70 billion package to support President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. This funding, which cleared the Republican-held Senate in a late-night vote, is seen as a significant step toward realizing Trump’s campaign promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.
The package, which now heads to the House, has been criticized by Democratic leaders and pro-immigrant advocates. They argue that it provides virtually no strings attached, effectively turning it into an ATM for ICE. This infusion of cash comes on top of the $170 billion already approved for the department last summer as part of Trump’s tax breaks bill.
Unrestricted Funding and Its Implications
The funding package is notably slim, consisting of just a dozen pages and lacking the usual guardrails or directives typically demanded in legislation. It allocates $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, nearly $20 billion for the Border Patrol, and other funds, prepaying the department’s operations into 2029.
Vanessa Cardenas, executive director at America’s Voice, an advocacy organization for immigrants, expressed concern over the lack of oversight. “Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money,” she said. “That is such a hard thing to accept as a taxpaying citizen that our dollars are going to this massive, mass deportation machine, while Americans are struggling to meet health care costs, and have access to food and they’re paying so much in gas.”
Shifting Immigration Enforcement Strategies
The administration has been shifting its approach to immigration enforcement, moving away from dramatic street sweeps to more subtle, behind-the-scenes actions. These include stripping immigrant groups of their ability to remain in the U.S. by doing away with Temporary Protected Status or making it more difficult to secure green cards.
The so-called Dreamersyoung immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children, have reported delays in renewing their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, exposing them to potential deportation. Protests continue, including over detention conditions at facilities like Delaney Hall in New Jersey.
At the same time, Homeland Security continues to hire more ICE agents, build more detention facilities, and partner with countries around the world to take people who are being deported from the U.S. The department stated that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin are “laser focused on ensuring the hardworking men and women” of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are fully funded.
The Power of the Purse and Political Pressures
Typically, a funding package from Congress would run hundreds of pages, with specific instructions about how the money can be spent and on what timelines. However, after Democrats refused to fund Homeland Security earlier this year following violence in Minnesota, Republicans retaliated by using the congressional budget resolution process to muscle the package through on their own.
This process, which bypasses traditional appropriations channels, has raised concerns about the lack of oversight. Bobby Kogan, a former staff member of the Senate Budget Committee and now at the Center for American Progress, noted, “All this important oversight doesn’t happen.” Democrats in the Senate worked to exert their authority, offering amendments to ensure Congress had some say in the process, but these efforts all failed.
The administration is under enormous pressure to deliver on its promise to boost deportations to some 1 million a yearafter the Republican president’s first year numbers fell short. Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project and a leader of the Mass Deportation Coalition, argued that the funding is more like “life-support money” and that the administration needs to start rather than keep going.
Howell suggested that the administration needs to drop its priority to go after what it calls the “worst of the worst” and proposed more comprehensive sweeps to arrest immigrants, particularly in the workplace. He also wants to see the Trump administration make it more difficult for immigrants who are in the U.S. to use the banking system, get social services, and obtain drivers licenses. Republicans in Congress have offered bills tackling some of these issues.
The administration has been amping up its rhetoric, recently posting a new website that characterizes immigrants as “aliens” with outer-space themes and suggests ways the White House is working to prevent people from staying in the U.S.
