What was the total ICE budget for fiscal year 2024?
Executive summary
The plain answer: ICE’s enacted base discretionary appropriation for fiscal year 2024 was in the neighborhood of $8.7–$9.6 billion depending on which official or secondary source is used, with common reporting citing $8.7 billion in the Department of Homeland Security’s FY2024 materials and $9.6 billion in the Senate Appropriations summary (DHS: $8.7B; Senate: $9.6B) [1] [2]. Broader measures of ICE “spending” or net outlays for FY2024 reported by watchdogs and data sites — which include supplemental transfers, intra-departmental reallocations and other adjustments — put the figure closer to about $10 billion [3] [4].
1. The departmental number: $8.7 billion in DHS’s FY2024 budget materials
U.S. Department of Homeland Security budget documents for FY2024 list ICE’s budget at $8.7 billion, along with staffing levels and program descriptions; that is the agency’s own budget request and an authoritative baseline for the year [1]. This figure is framed as the agency’s FY2024 Budget amount — the starting point for what Congress then considers and amends — and is what ICE used to plan operations and staffing in its internal materials [1].
2. Congress’s appropriations snapshot: a $9.6 billion figure in Senate Appropriations highlights
Legislative summaries produced by appropriations committees show a slightly higher congressional appropriation for ICE in the FY2024 Homeland Security spending bill: the Senate Appropriations highlights list $9.6 billion for ICE, an increase of roughly $1.2 billion above certain baseline requests and intended to fund detention bed levels and other enforcement priorities [2]. That $9.6 billion number reflects the committee’s policy choices and is the closest representation of Congress’s award of discretionary funds in the FY24 appropriations process [2].
3. Independent totals and “net spending” metrics: roughly $10 billion
Nonpartisan data aggregators and watchdog analyses report ICE’s FY2024 net spending at about $9.99–$10 billion; USAFacts, for example, reports a net total of $9.99 billion in FY2024, which folds in agency outlays as recorded in federal spending data rather than only the headline appropriation [4]. The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly documented that ICE has relied on additional funding beyond annual appropriations — transfers within DHS and occasional supplemental appropriations — that can total hundreds of millions per year, complicating simple comparisons between “appropriated” and “spent” [3].
4. Why the different numbers matter: appropriations vs. obligations vs. supplemental and reconciliation funds
Discrepancies between $8.7B, $9.6B, and roughly $10B arise because sources measure different things: the agency’s budget request, committee-level appropriations language, and final spending/outlays or net obligations reported in federal datasets [1] [2] [4]. Additionally, independent analyses and advocacy groups point out that extraordinary legislative packages enacted later (in 2025) injected large supplemental funds into immigration enforcement, but those are separate from FY2024 baseline appropriations and primarily affect FY2025 and beyond [5] [6]. The GAO specifically warns that ICE’s shifting of funds and reliance on transfers makes direct year-to-year comparisons and simple headline figures misleading unless the method of accounting is identified [3].
5. How authoritative outlets present the figure — and the politics behind the framing
Advocacy and watchdog groups emphasize larger totals when highlighting expansion of detention and enforcement capacity — for example, organizations citing “over $9.1 billion” to stress scale and priorities — while legislative summaries and the agency itself present slightly different baseline figures [7] [2] [1]. Reporting that later points to multi-year reconciliation packages (e.g., the One Big Beautiful Bill Act discussed in several pieces) concerns large additional sums earmarked for ICE across multiple years, but those should not be conflated with the FY2024 enacted baseline without clear qualification [5] [6].
6. Bottom line for readers and researchers
For FY2024, the defensible, source-cited baseline is $8.7 billion as the DHS/ICE budget figure and roughly $9.6 billion as the Senate appropriations committee’s allocation; broader federal spending measures put ICE’s fiscal-year outlays near $10 billion once transfers and execution differences are counted [1] [2] [4]. The GAO caution about transfers and supplemental funding [3] underscores that researchers must specify whether they mean “agency request,” “congressional appropriation,” or “net federal outlays” when citing an ICE budget number.