What is the annual budget of ICE?
Executive summary
The most direct, agency-published figure for ICE’s annual budget is the FY2026 request of $11.3 billion, while recent enacted and reported totals range roughly from $8.7–$9.0 billion for FY2024; separate congressional packages and advocacy summaries have described much larger multi‑year or supplemental allocations that would raise ICE‑related spending into the tens of billions if enacted [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. What the agency itself lists: the FY2026 request and recent budgets
ICE’s FY2026 Congressional Budget Justification, published by DHS, states an ICE budget request of $11.3 billion and lays out staffing levels and programmatic requests tied to that figure [1], while ICE’s own FY2024 materials and annual report describe the agency operating on an annual budget in the neighborhood of $8.7 billion (FY2024 budget document) to “approximately $9 billion” as summarized in its FY2024 annual report [2] [3].
2. How appropriations, requests, and “ICE funding” can mean different things
Budget numbers vary depending on whether the figure is the agency’s direct appropriation, combined DHS line items that include CBP and ICE, supplemental or reconciliation legislation, or multi‑year packages; for example, the Administration’s 2025 Budget materials group CBP and ICE together in larger totals and describe $25.9 billion for CBP and ICE in one basket [6], while separate congressional analyses sometimes present multiyear aggregates or omnibus sums that can be misunderstood as a single “annual” ICE figure [7] [8].
3. Congressional and policy‑group tallies that dramatically alter the headline number
In 2025 and 2026 coverage, some congressional and advocacy sources reported much larger totals tied to recent bills or reconciliation packages: a CRS/Library of Congress summary and related congressional documents discussed figures like $74.85 billion in the context of broader DHS or multi‑agency packages (the presentation there is not a simple single‑year ICE appropriation and requires reading the line‑item detail) [8] [7], while policy groups and commentators described a $75 billion four‑year allocation (about $18.7 billion per year on average) or even $29.9 billion in a single year for enforcement operations tied to specific reconciliation language—claims that reflect proposed or enacted supplemental/earmarked funds rather than routine base appropriations [4] [5].
4. Why these differences matter and what can be stated with confidence
What can be stated with confidence from the available documents is: ICE’s standalone, agency‑level budget as reported in official DHS materials was approximately $8.7–$9.0 billion for FY2024, and the FY2026 budget request lists $11.3 billion for ICE [2] [3] [1]. Claims of $18–30 billion per year for ICE typically derive from multi‑year packages, supplemental appropriations, or combined enforcement and detention funding across DHS components as tallied by outside groups and Congressional summaries; those larger totals require careful parsing of what line items and multi‑year authorities they include [4] [5] [8].
5. Bottom line and reporting limits
The plain answer to “What is the annual budget of ICE?” depends on which fiscal measure is referenced: the clearest single‑year, agency‑documented figures are FY2024 ~ $8.7–$9.0 billion and the FY2026 request of $11.3 billion [2] [3] [1]; wider figures publicized in media and advocacy reports reflect proposed or supplemental legislative packages and multi‑year allocations that, if enacted and spent as described, would sharply increase enforcement‑related funding beyond the agency’s core appropriation [4] [5]. The sources used here do not provide a single reconciled, enacted “ICE annual budget” figure that incorporates all proposals and post‑enactment transfers, so any headline number should be qualified by whether it denotes base appropriations, supplemental/reconciliation funds, or multi‑year commitments [8] [6].