ICE, borders and DHS: what’s in Trump’s $70bn immigration crackdown bill?

How is the funding divided?

About $26bn is going to CBP, $38bn to ICE and $5bn more generally to DHS, with the funding available for use through 30 September 2029, about eight months after Trump is due to leave office. And although the law does include some appropriations for the agencies’ other responsibilities  – such as combating drug trafficking and child sexual exploitation – its focus is chiefly funding immigration enforcement.

How will the money be spent?

At US borders and entry points, the legislation includes more than $13bn for CBP’s agents, support staff and operations involving immigration enforcement. Then, for policing inside the country, ICE is receiving more than $31bn for: 

• ICE personnel enforcing immigration policy

• State and local law enforcement cooperation through highly controversial 287(g) agreements, where police or other authorities conduct immigration enforcement activities on behalf of and in collaboration with the federal authorities  

• Government attorneys to argue for deportations

• Transportation costs for repatriations 

• Information technology improvements

• Facility and fleet maintenance 

• General “necessary expenses for ... mission support”

Among the law’s most controversial provisions is at least $350m earmarked for “necessary expenses” related to enforcement in places that do not actively cooperate with federal immigration officials   – likely targeting so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.

What isn’t in the bill?

None of the funds can be used (except as mandated by law) to “facilitate the release into the community” of a broad swathe of immigrants, including through placement in programs that might require the use of ankle monitors or virtual check-ins but at least allow people to avoid long-term detention.

Immigration advocates also say the law has omitted guardrails meant to hold the agencies accountable, such as reporting requirements and congressional oversight of detention facilities.

Is this the first major cash influx for immigration enforcement under Trump 2.0?

No. So far, DHS has gotten about a quarter of a billion dollars from Congress amid Trump’s second term. This new law comes on the heels of HR 1, which through the same partisan process funneled a whopping $170bn into immigration enforcement last summer.

There may be more to come: amid the regular appropriations process for fiscal year 2027, Republicans are advocating for ICE and CBP to receive another multibillion-dollar payout.

Did any of the Democrats’ demands make it into the law?

The legislation’s passage caps off a months-long saga that included the longest DHS shutdown ever, as Democrats pushed for reforms tied to the funding after immigration officials killed two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, during roaming patrols in Minneapolis earlier this year. Democrats wanted, in part, to: 

• Require DHS officers to get judicial warrants before making arrests on private property

• Mandate verifying someone is not a US citizen before detaining them 

• Ban immigration officials from hiding their faces with masks 

• Bar enforcement near schools, medical facilities and churches

• Stop DHS officers from profiling potential targets based on their location, job, language, accent, race or ethnicity

• Remove officers accused of use of force from the field during an investigation

• Mandate body-worn cameras for accountability, but not as a mechanism to track protestors

None of those measures made it into the bill, which passed through a partisan process that only required 50 votes – instead of the usual 60 – to advance through the Senate. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican senator who voted against the legislation, saying that by funding the agencies for three years instead of one, as is more typical, “it reduces Congress’s ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next”.

Has DHS changed its behavior since the outcry over Minneapolis?

After former DHS secretary Kristi Noem’s sudden ousting, her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, aspired to turn down the volume nationally around immigration enforcement and the harms it can cause.

That has meant less swaggering tactics in public, if no less aggressive enforcement itself, with an early focus around expanding reliance on local and state authorities to enforce immigration laws – including by effectively putting bounties on children who came to the country alone.

At the same time, border czar Tom Homan told a crowd last month that they “ain’t seen shit yet” and “mass deportations are coming”. More recently, he has threatened to send “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen” to New York after the state’s governor signed legislation meant to protect immigrants.

And ICE has remained in the headlines as protesters inside and outside federal detention centers – notably recently at Delaney Hall in New Jersey – and lawsuits, such as the one against the ICE tent jail at Fort Bliss, Texas, have shone a spotlight on allegedly inedible food, inadequate medical care and other inhumane conditions. DHS repeatedly and consistently denies all such allegations.

The administration also reportedly intends to advance plans to use at least a number of the estimated $38bn in warehouses bought under Noem for mass detention despite lawsuits and investigations beleaguering that plan, although officials may be considering reselling some of the facilities.

Who is being affected?

While the Trump administration regularly claims it is targeting the “worst of the worst”, as of early April, more than 70% of the 60,311 detainees across the country had no criminal convictions. Advocates protest that the latest influx of dollars will only widen who gets swept up and detained as the Trump administration maximizes its deportation efforts.

“When funding is scaled to this unprecedented degree without accountability measures, it is longtime residents, children, people with legal status, and even US citizens who bear the brunt of the consequences,” warned Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the non-profit Global Refuge.