Sources: OMB, DHS, HR 1/ OBBRA

This week, members of Congress are negotiating funding levels for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) after public opposition soared when federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

As of January 25, ICE held more than 70,000 people in detention, and claimed more than 352,000 deportations. In 2025, at least 32 people died in ICE custody, and so far in 2026, at least eight people have died in the custody or at the hands of ICE and CBP, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti. ICE and CBP have targeted citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented people alike. They have targeted adults and children. ICE is now holding an average of 170 children in detention each day.

They can do all of this because ICE and CBP are flush with money from last year’s Big Ugly Bill that stripped health insurance and food assistance from Americans while padding the budgets of ICE, CBP, and the Pentagon. The bill provided $170 billion for the Trump-GOP mass deportation agenda and $156 billion for the Pentagon, to be available through September 2029. That includes nearly $75 billion for ICE and more than $58 billion for CBP.

The “regular” annual budgets for ICE and CBP totaled about $33 billion in FY 2025. If legislators funded ICE and CBP at those levels for the current year, combined with funding from the Big Bad Bill, the annual budgets for those agencies would total $64.9 billion (assuming the Big Bad Bill funds are spent equally over the 51 months they’re available). That amounts to a 92 percent increase over the previous highest funding level for the agencies, which was $33.8 billion in FY 2019;  a 209 percent increase since FY 2024; and a 441 percent increase since the creation of ICE in FY 2002.

This doesn’t even include additional funding to support mass deportations through the Department of Defense and local law enforcement agencies. 

The ICE and CBP budgets are soaring at the same time that funding for legal immigration through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would get a 23 percent cut from FY 2024 to FY 2026. And the Big Bad Bill significantly increased fees across categories of legal immigration.

Sources: OMB, DHS, HR 1/ OBBRA

The message is clear: this regime is anti-immigrant. This was never about law enforcement, or else the legal paths to immigration would remain open. Instead, budgets for legal immigration are being cut while the Trump regime strips legal status from successive groups of formerly documented immigrants. 

The danger is that large numbers of legislators in both parties appear likely to approve relatively even baseline funding levels for ICE and CBP with limited procedural safeguards, while leaving the Big Bad Bill funding intact. The deaths and violence in detention centers and on our streets mean that any additional funding for ICE and CBP will only enable more violence. 

Notes: All figures are in FY 2026 dollars. Sources are the Office of Management and Budget, Department of Homeland Security FY 2026 budget request, and HR 1/ OBBRA.