What supplemental appropriations for border management did the Administration request for FY2024 and how were they distributed across DHS components?
Executive summary
The Administration’s FY2024 budget request included a contingent, emergency-designated supplemental proposal of up to $4.7 billion explicitly to address operations on the Southwest border, but it did not prescribe fixed dollar splits by agency; the proposal envisioned a Department-level “Southwest Border Contingency Operations Fund” through which the Secretary could allocate funds to CBP, ICE, and FEMA as conditions warranted [1] [2] [3]. Congress did not enact that contingency mechanism as written in the FY2024 appropriations process, and the request therefore described a potential pool rather than an immediate, component-level distribution [2] [3].
1. What the Administration actually asked for: a $4.7 billion contingent pool, not a detailed line-by-line reallocation
The centerpiece of the Administration’s supplemental ask for border management in FY2024 was a request for up to $4.7 billion in contingent emergency-designated supplemental appropriations to respond to migrant activity at the U.S.–Mexico border; that amount was framed as contingent on quarterly migrant encounter thresholds rather than guaranteed annual funding [1] [4]. The budget documents and CRS summaries repeatedly characterize this as a contingent, emergency-designated request intended to be released based on specified triggers tied to border metrics rather than being allocated automatically into individual component accounts [1] [3].
2. How the Administration proposed to distribute the money: a Department-controlled contingency fund for CBP, ICE, and FEMA
Rather than assigning fixed shares to specific DHS components, the Administration proposed creating a Department of Homeland Security “Southwest Border Contingency Operations Fund” that would permit the Secretary to provide up to $4.7 billion in emergency-designated appropriations to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) based on operational need [2]. CRS explicitly notes the proposal would have left distribution decisions to the Secretary and thus did not allocate the potential supplemental by component in the request itself [3].
3. Operational and legal levers included in the request beyond raw dollars
The FY2024 request included not only the contingent fund but also administrative proposals designed to give DHS more flexibility in managing border resources, such as authorizing CBP to use unobligated balances from its Procurement, Construction, and Improvement appropriations from earlier years for specified border management purposes and lifting some restrictions on barrier construction—measures intended to complement the supplemental funding mechanism [2]. Those administrative provisions were presented as part of the same border-management package but, like the contingency fund, were proposals Congress had not enacted previously and which were subject to committee scrutiny [2].
4. What Congress did (and did not) deliver and why the distribution question remains unsettled
In practice, the FY2024 enacted DHS appropriations did not adopt the Administration’s contingency fund language as requested, and CRS analyses emphasize that the Administration’s contingent appropriations were not included in the final enacted FY2024 annual DHS bill; therefore the $4.7 billion remained a proposal rather than an executed, component-level transfer [2] [4]. CRS and appropriations summaries also note that some supplemental and advance appropriations affecting DHS were provided through other statutes—such as advance appropriations from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and disaster relief supplements—but these are distinct from the Administration’s contingent border fund and do not substitute for a component-by-component breakdown of the requested $4.7 billion [5] [1] [3].
5. Bottom line and the open question for readers
The Administration’s FY2024 supplemental request for border management was a $4.7 billion, contingency-triggered, emergency-designated proposal intended to be distributed to CBP, ICE, and FEMA from a Department-controlled fund rather than as pre-assigned line-item appropriations; CRS and the Administration’s documents make clear the request did not specify fixed component allocations, and Congress did not enact that mechanism in the FY2024 appropriations package [2] [3] [1]. Because the proposal hinged on triggers and Secretary-directed transfers, any precise component-level distribution would only have been determined after the fact and therefore cannot be stated from the FY2024 request alone [3].