What are, separately, the funding for ICE and Border Patrol in FY2025 and FY2026?
Executive summary
The question requires two separate snapshots: how much funding was provided or requested for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for Border Patrol (a component of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP) for FY2025 and for FY2026. Reporting shows divergent numbers depending on which paper or branch of government is cited: the Administration’s FY2025 request and the House/Senate appropriations actions differ substantially, and the large FY2025 reconciliation/supplemental package passed in mid‑2025 further reshaped totals; exact, single-line “final” FY2026 enacted totals for each component are not fully documented in the supplied sources [1] [2] [3].
1. FY2025 — two competing frames: Administration request vs. Congressional action
The Administration’s FY2025 DHS budget materials highlighted specific ICE line items in its request, including $2.0 billion described as funding to “sustain 34,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)” detention capacity and other program increases reflected in the President’s FY2025 budget documents [1] [4]. By contrast, House appropriations materials summarized a different Congressional direction: the House Homeland Security Subcommittee’s FY2025 bill text provided $10.5 billion for ICE (presented as the subcommittee’s funding figure) while setting CBP at $18.26 billion overall (which includes Border Patrol funding among other CBP accounts) and recommending a Border Patrol end‑strength/related sustaining levels [2]. The House committee report also specifically recommended sustaining a Border Patrol end strength of 22,000 agents and directed resources across surveillance, hiring, and operations [5] [2]. Those differences illustrate that FY2025 “ICE funding” can be read as an Administration request line (including the $2.0B detention sustainment line) or as the House subcommittee appropriation number ($10.5B for ICE) — both are documented in the sources [1] [2].
2. FY2025 reconciliation/supplemental changed the landscape
A major reconciliation/supplemental package enacted in July 2025 (referred to in CRS and advocacy reporting) allocated unprecedented supplemental resources for DHS and border enforcement, cited as roughly $170–178 billion in immigration and border‑related funding across several years and with limited specificity on exact component breakdowns; reporting notes that package dramatically increased funds available for DHS border enforcement activities, which complicates simple year‑to‑year comparisons for FY2025 baseline appropriations [3] [6] [7]. Analysts and advocates interpreted that package as a massive surge for both ICE and CBP across FY2025–FY2029 [7] [3].
3. FY2026 — proposed amounts and programmatic increases, but no single, definitive enacted total in supplied sources
For FY2026, the materials provided include component‑level program requests and House markup line items rather than a single final enacted number for ICE or Border Patrol. The House FY2026 subcommittee summary shows $613 million identified to “sustain 22,000 Border Patrol agents” (a CBP/Border Patrol sustainment line), and other FY2026 committee documents summarize CBP budget decisions [8]. ICE’s FY2026 congressional budget justification (the agency’s FY26 PPA document) documents programmatic increases — for example, a $205.0 million program change for Transportation and Removal Operations and discrete staffing and operations adjustments — but the available excerpt does not present a single, consolidated ICE FY2026 total in these sources [9]. Reporting about FY2026 proposals from the Administration also cites discrete additions — for example, $500 million more for ICE to support expanded detention bed capacity in one administration document — but that again is a line item in a proposal, not a reconciled enacted total [10].
4. What can be stated with confidence and what remains uncertain
It is verifiable from the sources that: (a) the House FY2025 subcommittee reported $10.5 billion for ICE and $18.26 billion for CBP for FY2025 (which funds Border Patrol among other CBP programs) [2]; (b) the Administration’s FY2025 request included a $2.0 billion line cited to sustain 34,000 ICE detention beds and related ICE increases [1] [4]; and (c) FY2025’s large reconciliation/supplemental enacted in mid‑2025 added roughly $170–178 billion for border and immigration enforcement across multiple years, substantially altering resources available to ICE and CBP [3] [7]. What cannot be definitively reported from the supplied documents is a single, universally agreed “FY2026 enacted total” for ICE and for Border Patrol — the supplied FY2026 materials present proposed/requested increases and specific sustainment lines (e.g., $613M to sustain 22,000 Border Patrol agents and program increases inside ICE’s FY26 justification), but they do not show a reconciled, finalized FY2026 line‑item total for each component in the excerpts provided [8] [9].
5. Bottom line for the reader
Depending on which authoritative frame is chosen — Administration request, House subcommittee appropriation, or the later reconciliation/supplemental package — the headline figures differ: House FY2025 subcommittee numbers show ICE at $10.5 billion and CBP at $18.26 billion [2]; the Administration’s FY2025 request emphasized a $2.0 billion ICE detention sustainment line and other ICE increases [1]; and the mid‑2025 reconciliation added roughly