Two months ago, Democrats said they would withhold funding for immigration enforcement agencies until the administration agreed to curb certain tactics. Fifty-nine days into an unprecedented Department of Homeland Security shutdown, those demands have not produced the policy changes activists sought, and immigration enforcement under President Trump has continued with relatively little disruption.
A major reason is that congressional Republicans had already given Immigration and Customs Enforcement an enormous infusion of cash last year — roughly $75 billion on top of its usual funding — with few restrictions. That upfront spending has insulated ICE from leverage that Democrats hoped to use. As lawmakers return from recess, Republican leaders are preparing to again bypass Democratic opposition to ensure ICE and Customs and Border Protection remain financed through the end of the administration.
The large appropriation arrived last summer when Republicans used budget reconciliation to push the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act through the Senate without the need for bipartisan support. The sprawling package cut taxes, reduced Medicaid spending and rolled back some clean-energy incentives — and it included an unprecedented $75 billion in additional funds for ICE, in addition to its roughly $10 billion annual budget. Other DHS components, including CBP, also received tens of billions more.
Observers say the money was broad and flexible rather than narrowly targeted. Sam Bagenstos, who served as general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Biden administration, described the allocation as effectively a blank check that removed a key annual accountability moment. Because Congress had already provided such a large and flexible appropriation, he warned, lawmakers lost much of their leverage to demand changes during the shutdown standoff.
That lack of leverage became more consequential after a pair of high-profile incidents in Minneapolis in which immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens. In response, Democratic leaders vowed to block funding for ICE and Border Patrol unless the White House accepted reforms such as requiring judicial warrants before entering homes and banning officers from wearing masks. But with the earlier appropriation in place, Democrats found it harder to impose those conditions.
The extra funding kept ICE and Border Patrol operations running through the funding lapse in ways other agencies were not. Unlike TSA workers, many ICE and Border Patrol activities were largely unaffected because of the infusion and a presidential order to pay certain employees despite the lapse in appropriations.
With the new money, ICE has expanded personnel, increased detention capacity and pursued property purchases such as warehouses to hold more detainees. Private prison companies, including CoreCivic and Geo Group, benefited and spent heavily on lobbying in 2025 in support of the big bill. Critics argue that the scale and flexibility of the funds undermined an important annual check: the appropriations process that forces agencies to justify their budgets and operations to Congress each year.
John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director and acting DHS general counsel in the Obama administration, said the yearly budget process serves as a constraint because it requires agency officials to publicly defend their spending. Without that recurring review, he said, lawmakers have fewer opportunities to press for reforms or to limit questionable practices.
The $75 billion came with relatively few guardrails, and some subsequent spending choices attracted criticism. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem allocated some funds to purchase two luxury aircraft and awarded a multimillion-dollar advertising contract to a firm linked to her and senior aides. Lawmakers have also flagged ICE’s use of limited or no-bid contracts as it raced to expand capacity. Sandweg cautioned that large, easily spent sums without rigorous oversight create vulnerabilities to waste, fraud and misconduct.
The new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has rolled back some of Noem’s spending decisions, and Democrats say the high-profile shutdown fight helped spur those reversals — even though no legislative deal tied to the reforms they sought has been reached. A DHS spokesperson noted the department remains subject to congressional oversight and described the shutdown as the opposition party’s longest government closure in U.S. history.
Republican leaders argue Democrats are overreaching by threatening to withhold funds. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that blocking appropriations exceeds normal oversight and disrupts the process that typically requires 60 votes to advance funding bills in the Senate. Thune characterized the $75 billion as pre-funding that insulated agencies from a shutdown.
Senators reached a deal to broadly fund DHS while excluding ICE and Border Patrol, but the House has not taken up the Senate measure amid divisions among House Republicans. Top Republicans are signaling they will again use reconciliation to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the remainder of the term, sidestepping Democratic demands for reforms. Senator Ted Cruz even proposed using the reconciliation process to lock in funding for a decade, arguing some Democrats might never vote to fund the agency.
Bagenstos, now a law and public policy professor, views the pattern of bypassing regular appropriations and standard spending rules as an erosion of Congress’s authority. He noted inconsistencies in how the administration has used funds — refusing to spend some appropriations, like certain foreign aid, while using other authorities to pay DHS workers during a shutdown — and warned that ceding the annual appropriations mechanism invites future executives to adopt similar tactics.
The framers of the Constitution gave Congress control over spending as a check on the executive branch. Critics of last year’s funding surge argue that by sidestepping the normal budget process and providing a massive, flexible appropriation, Congress weakened that constitutional tool. If lawmakers do not reassert their power of the purse, they risk setting a precedent that future administrations will exploit, leaving fewer levers to demand policy changes or oversight.