U.S. Senate lawmakers are preparing to debate their own version of a massive government spending bill passed by the U.S. House this month.
The House GOP-crafted bill includes some $45 billion that would go toward detaining immigrants until 2029.
That’s roughly $9 billion per year — an amount that far surpasses a previous record-high of $3.4 billion Congress appropriated for ICE detention a little over a year ago, under the Biden administration.
ICE currently has capacity to detain roughly 41,000 people. Under the GOP bill, that number would increase to some 100,000.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, says there’s not currently enough space to detain that many people.
“ICE would be forced to use this funding to build new detention centers, new soft-sided detention camps, where tents would be thrown up by detention contractors, where immigrants would be held, potentially en masse,” he said.
The bill includes over $150 billion for various components of immigration enforcement, including detention, border wall construction and deportation transportation.
“Taken together, this funding would make ICE the best funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history, with more detention bed funding that the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons and potentially more agents on board than the entire Federal Bureau of Investigations,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
He says the new bill also includes additional funds for ICE to hire new agents and increase collaboration initiatives with local law enforcement agencies — like 287-g agreements. But, no funding for DHS oversight.
“When you look at this taken together, you see that this is a transformative level of funding for ICE and would allow the agency to be present in communities around the country in a way that we have never seen before in American history,” he said. “With federal law enforcement officers going into every single community, every single day in more visible ways than we've ever seen in this country, maybe since the days of prohibition.”
DHS shuttered three oversight offices in March and laid off staff. A group of rights organizations filed suit against the closures, and the agency has since said the offices have been restored. But staff layoffs remain.
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The Respect for Local Communities Act would require public comment and written approval from state and local officials where ICE facilities are planned. Congressional committees would also have to be notified. -
In a district with more than 80% nonwhite students, the community is calling for a more rigorous effort to protect schools from potential immigration enforcement activity. -
A bill advancing in the Arizona Legislature would direct local police to determine the immigration status of people they’ve arrested. If a person is undocumented, local police would be required to notify federal immigration officers. -
Almost two dozen rights organizations from the U.S. and elsewhere presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights this week in Guatemala City during a hearing about so-called third country deportations — which are done through deals the U.S. has made with almost 30 different countries. -
The federal government has awarded a contract worth up to $700 million to a controversial security contractor that staffs Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” to operate a planned immigration detention facility in Surprise.
