This is how much ICE gets in funding

Update: Senate Democrats and the White House have reached a spending deal to fund most of the government and avoid a prolonged shutdown. A bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security will be separated from the rest of the spending package after Democratic lawmakers called for reforms to ICE.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats voted against a six-bill spending package that includes $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which means the U.S. government could enter a partial government shutdown by Saturday. About $10 billion from the DHS bill is allocated for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which the agency can use for “police-type vehicles,” maintenance and construction at ICE facilities, and deportation-related expenses. 

As part of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, ICE is also receiving $75 billion in taxpayer dollars that the agency can use over the next four years. 

Opposition to DHS funding comes after Border Patrol officers killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, over the weekend. Earlier this month, an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. 

To pass the bill, Democratic lawmakers say that the White House would have to agree to ICE reforms. At a press conference on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined multiple policy goals to curb ICE’s actions, which include an end to roving patrols, stricter rules surrounding the use of warrants, coordination between ICE and local and state law enforcement, a ban on masks, and a requirement that agents have to carry proper identification and use body cameras. 

“These are common-sense reforms, ones that Americans know and expect from law enforcement,” Schumer said. 

The DHS bill passed through the House last Thursday in a 220-207 vote with seven Democrats voting in favor of it, although some Democratic lawmakers have expressed regret over the decision. 

If the DHS bill isn’t split from the other bills and if Senators don’t approve all of them, then the government will enter another shutdown by Jan. 31 at midnight. The U.S. just emerged from its longest shutdown on record in late 2025. 

Congress appropriates money for ICE every year, an amount that has ranged between $8 billion to $10 billion since 2020. The $10 billion for ICE in this DHS bill reflects the money that Congress routinely appropriates for the agency.

“Normally holding up ICE’s annual appropriation would represent a major financial blow to the agency’s operations, but Congress gave it approximately $75 billion last spring when it enacted the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. “The agency should have available far more money than it’s accustomed to regardless of what happens with the current funding fight.” 

ICE is allowed to spend that $75 billion over the next four years.

Not only did ICE get $75 billion in 2025, but it also received its normal base budget.

Of that $75 billion, $45 billion will go toward building new detention centers. This could expand the number of ICE detention beds by at least 125,000, according to the American Immigration Council. That $45 billion means that ICE’s annual detention budget is 62% greater than the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons’ annual budget, according to the American Immigration Council. 

The remaining $30 billion is earmarked for hiring and training ICE personnel, which will give the agency the capacity to hire 10,000 ICE officers in the upcoming years.