What line items in the FY2026 DHS budget request trace to ICE’s $11.3 billion request?
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security’s FY2026 materials show a formal ICE budget request of $11.3 billion, including 21,808 positions and 21,786 full‑time equivalents, concentrated in ICE’s Operations and Support (O&S) appropriation [1]. Broader increases tied to the FY2025 reconciliation package complicate the picture: CRS and DHS documents treat large reconciliation allocations separately from the agency’s base request, leaving some detention and “slush fund” allocations opaque [2] [3].
1. ICE’s headline ask: $11.3 billion and the O&S appropriation
ICE’s own congressional budget justification states the FY2026 Budget includes $11.3 billion for the agency and explicitly ties that resourcing level to staffing—21,808 positions and 21,786 FTE—which the document says will fill “critical resource gaps” to carry out ICE’s operational mission; the justification identifies the Operations and Support (O&S) appropriation as the principal funding vehicle for those activities [1].
2. What the DHS/Congressional documents show — agency request versus reconciliation money
The Congressional Research Service and DHS budget appendices present two parallel numbers: the Department transmitted an FY2026 budget request (with ICE’s $11.3 billion figure) and separately recognized tens of billions of multiyear reconciliation funds that would flow into DHS programs; CRS notes the FY2026 appendix did not provide a detailed breakdown for how reconciliation dollars would be apportioned across DHS components, creating uncertainty about how much additional funding—beyond ICE’s $11.3 billion—might be used for immigration enforcement activities [2] [4] [3].
3. Line items directly traceable to the $11.3B in ICE’s own submission
Within the materials available, the clearest line items that trace directly to ICE’s $11.3 billion are the standard ICE budget structure shown in the agency’s congressional budget justification: the O&S account that funds Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), management and administrative support, detention‑related operational costs under ICE’s purview, and associated personnel costs—the justification frames the $11.3B as funding those operational missions and positions [1]. The public extracts provided do not publish a granular line‑by‑line table in the source snippets, so finer allocations within the O&S account (for example, exact dollars for ERO vs. HSI vs. detention contracting) are not present in the cited excerpts [1] [5].
4. Where reporting and advocacy pieces extend beyond the official request
Outside the ICE justification, advocacy and investigative pieces have attributed much larger detention and enforcement spending to a combination of the $11.3B base request plus reconciliation spending. The Brennan Center analyzes reconciliation additions and asserts an added $11.25 billion to ICE’s detention budget (which it frames as a dramatic increase and compares to DOJ prison funding), but that figure pertains to reconciliation appropriations and analysis rather than the agency’s submitted $11.3B base request [6]. Separately, analysts such as Jacobin have modeled how a pro‑rata share of reconciliation funds could roughly double or triple ICE’s effective funding in 2026, arguing that statutory flexibility in the reconciliation text could allow DHS leadership to reallocate substantial additional sums to ICE activities [7]. Those interpretations rely on reading reconciliation language and projected apportionments that CRS and DHS say were not fully detailed in the FY2026 appendix [2] [3].
5. Bottom line and limits of the public record
The directly traceable line items in the public FY2026 submission are: ICE’s O&S appropriation and the personnel/FTE counts that accompany the agency’s $11.3 billion request, which the ICE congressional budget justification presents as funding enforcement operations, support, and associated staffing [1]. Beyond that, large additional sums in the reconciliation package are documented in CRS and DHS materials as available to DHS generally but are not broken down in the FY2026 appendix with specificity for ICE, so attributing particular detention or enforcement line items to reconciliation funding requires inference or separate legislative analysis rather than a direct mapping from the agency’s $11.3 billion request [2] [4] [3]. Legislative markups and appropriations summaries from House committees show alternative toplines—one markup quoted an $11.0 billion figure for ICE in its bill language—illustrating that enacted or committee figures can differ from the agency request [8].