Senate lawmakers have narrowly approved a massive spending bill that — if approved by the U.S. House — would supercharge funding for immigration enforcement.
Vice President JD Vance broke a deadlocked Senate vote this week, allowing the Senate version of President Donald Trump’s so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" to move forward and closer to being signed into law.
If passed, it would give $150 billion worth of funding to immigration and border enforcement agencies.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will get some $45 billion for family and adult detention alone — up from the roughly $8 billion annual budget the agency gets now. The new amount would give ICE more than 60% more funding that the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons budget, according to an analysis from the American Immigration Council.
Another $30 billion will go toward new ICE personnel and expanded enforcement, and $59 billion will go toward Customs and Border Protection for more border wall, Border Patrol agents and surveillance.
More than 56,000 people are detained by ICE nationwide now, well over the agency’s current 41,000 bed capacity. The bill would allow the agency to detain as many as 116,000 people at once.
Last month, ICE also moved to limit congressional oversight visits to detention centers, despite lawmakers’ legal authority to tour facilities unannounced.
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The ruling comes a day after news broke of the government’s plan to offer legal aid to detained immigrant children through a $150 million contract Burke Law Group — a small Texas-based firm with a co-founder who is a former Trump appointee. -
A notice posted on the Federal Register this week details a $150 million government contract with Burke Law Group to represent unaccompanied immigrant children. A multimillion-dollar contact with nonprofits across the country to do the work expired Friday. -
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to help people during disasters like floods and fires. But a new report finds the Trump administration diverted FEMA staff at key times to do something very different — help ICE in immigration enforcement. -
The DACA program turned 14 this year. The Obama-era initiative is supposed to give some undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children a work permit and temporary protection from deportation. But community members say that’s no longer the case under President Donald Trump. -
Some 20,000 children alone in the US receive legal aid through the contract — part of a federal program established by Congress almost two decades ago. The contract to do that work expires July 31.
