What is the current US federal budget for ICE in 2024?

1. What agencies and documents say: the $8.7 billion baseline

ICE’s FY2024 budget document and DHS materials state the FY2024 Budget includes $8.7 billion, along with specific position and FTE counts (22,175 positions, 22,007 FTE) to carry out ICE missions, which is the clearest official baseline figure for that fiscal year ^[1]. Nonpartisan aggregators that compile Office of Management and Budget and Treasury data also show ICE net spending figures for 2024 consistent with a relatively small share of the total federal budget (around 0.1%), corroborating that ICE’s formal 2024 appropriation was not in the tens of billions range reported for later years ^[5].

2. Why some sources report much larger numbers (context on supplements and reconciliation)

Multiple advocacy and watchdog sources describe enormous increases tied to later reconciliation legislation and supplemental packages—figures like $27.7 billion annually, $30 billion, or multi-year totals such as $74.85 billion or $75 billion appear in reporting about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and similar 2025 reconciliation measures—but those reflect post‑2024 legislative actions or proposed spending streams rather than ICE’s enacted FY2024 appropriation ^{[4] [6] [7]}. The Brennan Center and other organizations flagged reconciliation language that would add many billions to detention and enforcement budgets, characterizing that as transforming ICE funding; those analyses refer to new laws and proposed funds beyond the FY2024 baseline ^{[3] [8]}.

3. GAO and budget execution: official appropriations vs. additional funding streams

The Government Accountability Office reviewed ICE financial management and documented that ICE frequently relied on additional funding beyond annual appropriations—including supplemental appropriations and intra‑DHS transfers—amounting to hundreds of millions in recent years, which means total ICE resources in a given year can exceed the formal appropriation figure ^[2]. GAO’s point is technical but important: the $8.7 billion baseline does not necessarily equal total resources used by ICE in 2024 if contingency transfers or supplemental grants were applied ^[2].

4. Advocacy perspectives and political framing (who benefits from which narratives)

Advocacy groups and policy centers emphasize different numbers to support their policy narratives: immigrant‑rights organizations highlight the relatively modest FY2024 baseline to argue that later multi‑billion expansions are unprecedented and dangerous ^{[1] [9]}, while critics of immigration enforcement frame reconciliation additions as creating a “deportation‑industrial complex” and cite $11.25 billion per year for detention or multi‑year $45 billion construction pots to underscore scale ^{[3] [10]}. Conversely, some media pieces summarize the reconciliation outcome as an annual ICE budget jumping to roughly $27.7–30 billion, which reflects the new law’s allocations rather than historical FY2024 enacted appropriations ^{[4] [6]}.

5. Bottom line, caveats, and what remains unclear

The best, directly attributable figure for ICE’s FY2024 federal budget is $8.7 billion as reported in ICE’s FY2024 budget documents ^[1], but total resources directed to immigration enforcement in 2024 could be higher when including supplemental appropriations, contingency transfers, or DHS intra‑agency movements noted by GAO ^[2]. Reporting that cites much larger annual figures predominantly refers to subsequent legislation or reconciliation packages enacted or proposed after FY2024 and should not be conflated with the FY2024 baseline unless the source specifies transfers or multi‑year statutory increases ^{[3] [4]}.