How have Congress’s DHS appropriations for ICE changed over the last decade, year by year?
Executive summary
Congress’s appropriations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have moved from steady baseline funding to a recent era of large supplemental transfers and political fights: the last two years alone show multi‑billion-dollar infusions tied to the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and a contentious FY2026 DHS package that largely flat‑funds ICE while carving out modest reductions and oversight measures [1] [2] [3]. The available reporting and agency budget justifications document aggressive swings in legislative decisions, but the materials provided do not contain a complete, year‑by‑year table of ICE appropriations across the past decade — researchers must consult DHS historical budget documents and Congress.gov for a fiscal‑year series [4] [5].
1. The broad arc: steady base funding, then a recent windfall and political backlash
For much of the 2010s and early 2020s, ICE operated on annual appropriations that were relatively stable in core accounts, even as programmatic priorities changed; the DHS archive catalogs budget briefs from FY2003 through FY2026 for researchers who want the detailed year‑by‑year figures [4]. That baseline was disrupted in 2024–2025 when Republican leadership used a large omnibus/domestic policy vehicle to move substantial discretionary dollars into DHS components — a development The New York Times describes as a “windfall” for ICE with few strings attached [6]. Advocacy groups and some lawmakers immediately characterized the transfer as creating an effective slush fund for immigration enforcement [7] [8].
2. FY2025–FY2026: billions more, then a contested attempt to rein in spending
The most concrete recent figures in reporting show the FY2026 Homeland Security conference bill providing $64.4 billion in total DHS discretionary funding while flat‑funding ICE’s baseline in some accounts and simultaneously incorporating funds from the earlier One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) arrangement, which added substantial emergency or shifted‑base money to ICE components [1] [5]. House reporting and floor coverage noted roughly $10 billion allocated to ICE in the DHS package sent through the chamber, and other congressional materials and members’ statements place ICE custody operations at about $3.84 billion with Enforcement and Removal Operations reaching roughly $5.45 billion under the FY2026 measures mentioned in members’ releases [2] [9]. Those package numbers coexist with targeted reductions in the House text — a $115 million cut to Enforcement and Removal Operations and a plan to reduce 5,500 detention beds — that Democrats touted as concessions amid outcry over enforcement tactics [10] [3].
3. Politics, oversight and competing agendas shaped funding moves
The legislative tug‑of‑war was explicit: House Republicans, including the Freedom Caucus, insisted DHS and ICE funding remain intact and nonnegotiable, arguing homeland security must not be used as a leverage point, while many Democrats pushed to use the appropriations process to impose guardrails, oversight, and even rebudgeting proposals like the Melt ICE Act or amendments to redirect OBBBA money [11] [9] [3]. Senate Democrats signaled resistance to advancing the DHS bill without substantive reforms, producing a fractured path to final appropriations and prompting members to offer amendments to reallocate billions of ICE‑related OBBBA funds to local law enforcement or community services [12] [13].
4. What the sources cannot tell — and where to look for the year‑by‑year ledger
None of the supplied sources presents a comprehensive, fiscal‑year‑by‑fiscal‑year table of ICE appropriations from 2016–2025; the DHS budget repository and Congress.gov/Appropriations are the authoritative places to pull that decade‑long series and reconcile base appropriations, emergency transfers, and fee offsets [4] [5]. To convert the narrative above into a strict annual line‑item chart requires pulling ICE’s Congressional Budget Justifications and the Appropriations Committee reports for each fiscal year — documents DHS and the Library of Congress explicitly maintain [4] [5].
5. Bottom line: headline increases, but nuance in form and control
The last decade culminates in a recent spike not solely through classic annual increases but through legislative maneuvers that shifted emergency and omnibus dollars into ICE, then provoked a partisan push to trim or constrain that money in the FY2026 DHS package — a mix of flat‑funding in some accounts, billions funneled via OBBBA, and modest cuts and oversight language built into the House bill [6] [1] [10]. Readers seeking a precise, year‑by‑year numeric table should consult DHS’s budget documents and the congressional appropriations reports; the press coverage and member statements here explain the political drivers but do not replace the primary fiscal‑year datasets [4] [5].