WASHINGTON — Congress stands ready to deliver a massive financial boost to the Department of Homeland Security, providing nearly unrestricted funding to support President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement initiatives throughout his presidency.
The approximately $70 billion funding measure passed the Republican-controlled Senate during an overnight session and is now moving to the House. Democratic leadership condemned it as a “rotten bill” while immigration advocacy groups labeled it an “ATM for ICE.”
For supporters of Trump’s pledge to conduct the nation’s largest immigration enforcement operation in history, the legislation ensures steady financial resources for the administration’s immigration activities. This comes in addition to roughly $170 billion Congress previously authorized for the department last summer as part of Trump’s comprehensive tax legislation.
“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump border czar Tom Homan told CBS News on Friday.
He suggested that enforcement sweeps might target New York City during the summer months.
This congressional action occurs during a crucial period for the Republican president and his party as they prepare for midterm elections with an increasingly concerned electorate. An AP-NORC poll from April revealed that roughly one-third of American adults personally know someone affected by Trump’s immigration policies. As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, polling shows most Americans no longer view the country as welcoming to immigrants.
The funding legislation spans just twelve pages and lacks the typical oversight provisions and spending guidelines usually included in such measures. It allocates $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities, nearly $20 billion for Border Patrol operations, and other amounts, covering departmental expenses through 2029.
“Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director at America’s Voice, a longtime advocacy organization for immigrants.
“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.”
The administration has attempted to reframe discussions around its immigration policies, bringing in new Homeland Security leadership following violent enforcement incidents earlier this year and the fatal shootings of Americans Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Instead of conducting highly visible street operations, the administration is pursuing behind-the-scenes measures that eliminate immigrant communities’ legal pathways to remain in the United States, including ending Temporary Protected Status and creating additional barriers to obtaining green cards.
Young immigrants known as Dreamers, who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children, have experienced processing delays for their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals renewals, potentially leaving them vulnerable to removal.
However, demonstrations continue across the country, including protests regarding conditions at the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey.
Simultaneously, Homeland Security continues expanding its ICE workforce — scheduling a recruitment event in Florida next month — constructing additional detention centers, and establishing partnerships with international governments to accept individuals being removed from the United States.
In an official statement, the department indicated 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 receive full funding. The statement characterized the congressional package as ensuring “our critical national security operations continue despite any Democrat attempts to hold our great patriotic employees hostage in the future.”
Standard congressional funding measures typically span hundreds of pages and include detailed specifications regarding expenditure methods and implementation schedules.
Congress traditionally exercises its constitutional spending authority to provide administrative oversight and limitations.
However, after Democrats blocked Homeland Security funding earlier this year following the Minnesota violence, Republicans responded by utilizing the budget reconciliation process to advance the package independently, bypassing regular appropriations procedures.
Both political parties have employed this same mechanism previously, including for Trump’s 2025 tax reduction legislation.
“All this important oversight doesn’t happen,” said Bobby Kogan, a former staff member of the Senate Budget Committee and now at the Center for American Progress, a think tank.
During the overnight Senate session, Democrats attempted to assert congressional authority by proposing amendments to maintain legislative input. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, sought to protect “Dreamers” from deportation while their DACA renewals face delays. These efforts were unsuccessful.
The administration faces significant pressure to fulfill its commitment to increase annual deportations to approximately 1 million, following the Republican president’s first-year figures that fell below expectations.
Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, leads the Mass Deportation Coalition that encourages the Trump administration to honor its commitments.
“Everyone’s talking about ICE is going to get another massive cash injection, and that’s not how I see it at all,” he said. “They’re getting like life-support money.”
“We’re not asking them to keep going,” Howell said. “We’re asking them to start.”
Howell indicated there’s minimal possibility the Trump administration will achieve the president’s deportation targets unless it abandons its focus on pursuing what it terms the “worst of the worst.”
His organization released a proposal earlier this year recommending broader enforcement operations targeting immigrants, especially in employment settings. He also advocates for the Trump administration to restrict immigrants’ access to banking services, social programs, and driver’s licenses. Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation addressing some of these areas.
The administration has intensified its messaging and recently launched a website that refers to immigrants as “aliens” — using space-themed imagery — while outlining White House efforts to prevent individuals from remaining in the United States.
