Where can I download ICE’s enacted appropriations by federal account for FY2016–FY2025 from primary sources?
Executive summary
A clear trail of primary-source downloads exists for ICE’s enacted appropriations across FY2016–FY2025, but it runs through multiple congressional products—statutes (public laws), committee reports and explanatory statements, and consolidated appropriations status compilations rather than a single “ICE-only” file; researchers should rely on the Appropriations Status Table and the Department of Homeland Security appropriations texts and reports to assemble account-level enacted figures [1] [2]. The Government Accountability Office provides essential context about intra‑DHS transfers and execution that can explain differences between enacted amounts and ICE budget execution [3].
1. Where the enacted numbers live: enacted appropriations statutes and committee reports
The primary sources that legally establish enacted appropriations are the public laws and their accompanying committee reports and explanatory statements; for DHS accounts that fund ICE these appear in the DHS appropriations bills and the consolidated appropriations acts that Congress signed into law each year, with House committee reports documenting the committee’s allocations and directions [4] [2].
2. Best single starting point: the Congressional Research Service appropriations status table
For an index-style, year-by-year map to which appropriations measures provided funding—and to locate the correct public law and legislative vehicle—use the CRS Appropriations Status Table, which compiles enacted measures, continuing resolutions, and notes about P.L. actions across fiscal years and identifies where FY2025 continuing resolutions and prior enactments were placed [1].
3. For ICE-specific line items: the DHS appropriations reports and bill text
The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations CRS product and the DHS appropriations bill text and committee report list the titles and components funded by each appropriations act and are the authoritative source to extract account-level enacted amounts for ICE-related accounts within DHS; the CRS product focuses on substantive funding changes and provides the breakdowns needed to attribute enacted funding to ICE programs within DHS titles [2].
4. Where reporting and oversight add value: GAO and reconciliation of movements
Because ICE has, in recent years, relied on funding movements inside DHS and reprogramming notifications, the GAO’s financial management reviews document how DHS relocated funds to ICE and why enacted totals can differ from amounts actually available to ICE—GAO reports summarize notifications and quantify movements that affect the practical funding picture [3].
5. Practical download workflow—assemble enacted ICE appropriations by fiscal year
First, consult the CRS Appropriations Status Table to identify the enacted vehicle or continuing resolution for each fiscal year [1]; second, download the DHS appropriations bill text and the accompanying committee report or explanatory statement for that year [2] [4] and extract the enacted line items for the ICE‑relevant accounts (for example, ICE salaries and expenses and detention operations where those appear); third, cross‑check GAO oversight products for any intra‑DHS transfers or reprogrammings that shifted funding after enactment [3].
6. Important caveats and where primary sources won’t answer everything
Primary appropriations documents record enacted amounts but do not always reflect later internal transfers, rescissions, or intra‑DHS movements that GAO highlights; therefore, relying solely on the enacted statutory tables can miss post‑enactment adjustments and execution anomalies documented in oversight reports [3]. Additionally, the CRS status table and DHS appropriations products point to the statutes but researchers may need to parse multiple PDFs and committee explanatory statements year by year to produce a single table covering FY2016–FY2025 [1] [2].
7. Conclusion—use the statutory record plus oversight products for a complete, defensible dataset
The defensible, primary‑source approach is to download the enacted public laws and their committee reports (the statutory record captured and indexed in CRS’s Appropriations Status Table), extract DHS appropriations line items that fund ICE from the DHS appropriations bill text and committee reports, and then consult GAO oversight products to reconcile post‑enactment movements; these sources together provide the necessary primary documentation to compile ICE’s enacted appropriations by federal account for FY2016–FY2025 [1] [2] [4] [3].