Two months ago Democrats said they would not fund immigration enforcement agencies without reforms to curb officer tactics. Fifty-nine days into a record-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown, that strategy has produced none of the policy changes they demanded, while President Trump’s immigration enforcement continues largely unimpeded.
That is largely because congressional Republicans gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement a $75 billion infusion last year with few strings attached — money that has insulated ICE from pressure and oversight. As lawmakers return from recess, top Republicans are planning to again sidestep Democrats to ensure ICE and Customs and Border Protection remain funded through the end of the administration.
A massive shoveling of cash
Last summer, Republicans pushed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act through using budget reconciliation, a tool that circumvents the need for bipartisan support in the Senate. The sprawling law cut taxes, pared Medicaid and eliminated certain clean-energy credits — and included $75 billion in new money for ICE, on top of its roughly $10 billion annual budget. That surge made ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency. Other DHS components, including CBP, also received tens of billions in additional funding.
Sam Bagenstos, who served as general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget in the Biden administration, says the money was not narrowly targeted but functioned like a blank check. “Here what we have is just a massive shoveling of cash to an agency with few if any strings,” he says. “I can’t think of an example that’s anywhere close to that.”
The funding drew sharper scrutiny months later after immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Democrats responded by vowing to withhold funding for ICE and Border Patrol unless the White House agreed to reforms — proposals including requiring judicial warrants for home entries and banning officers from wearing masks. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, a central check on the executive branch. But Bagenstos warns that because Congress granted such a large, flexible appropriation in the earlier bill, it weakened that check. “Congress had already taken away its ability to do that by passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which gave ICE enough money that they can say to Congress, ‘Yeah, sorry, we don’t need to come back to you for money, and there’s nothing you can do to us,'” he says.
A tempering influence on the agency
The shutdown normally would affect an entire agency, but ICE and Border Patrol operations largely continued. Unlike Transportation Security Administration employees, who worked without pay, most ICE and Border Patrol activities were largely unimpaired because of the earlier funding surge and an executive order by the president to pay certain workers despite the lapse in appropriations.
The cash has enabled ICE to hire thousands of agents, expand detention capacity and pursue purchases such as warehouses to house more detainees. Private prison companies, including CoreCivic and Geo Group, benefited and spent millions on lobbying in 2025 supporting the big bill. Critics say the size and flexibility of the funds removed an important annual accountability mechanism.
John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director and acting DHS general counsel in the Obama administration, says the annual appropriations process forces agencies to defend their spending and operations before Congress, which acts as a constraint. “Having that appropriations mechanism where you have to get up there and defend what you did and how you did it every year — that is a tempering influence on the agency,” he says. Without that check, lawmakers have fewer avenues to press for changes.
The $75 billion allocation came with relatively few guardrails, and some spending choices have drawn criticism. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem used some funds to acquire two luxury jets and awarded a multimillion-dollar ad contract to a firm tied to her and top aides. Lawmakers have raised concerns about ICE’s reliance on limited or no-bid contracts as it races to expand capacity. Sandweg warns that easily spent, large sums with limited oversight create “a real vulnerability to fraud or misconduct.”
The new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has moved to roll back some of Noem’s spending policies. Democrats say the shutdown fight helped prompt those changes, even though there has been no legislative agreement between Congress and the White House on the reforms Democrats sought. A DHS spokesperson said the department remains subject to congressional oversight and called the shutdown “the Democrats’ longest government shutdown in U.S. history.”
Republicans say Democrats are “stretching it”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued that by withholding funding, Democrats are exceeding oversight and obstructing Congress’ appropriations responsibilities, since regular funding bills typically require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Thune framed the $75 billion as a pre-funding measure, saying Republicans “prefunded” ICE.
Senate negotiators reached an agreement to fund DHS broadly — excluding ICE and Border Patrol — but the House has not voted on the Senate-passed deal amid resistance from some House Republicans. Now top Republicans are signaling they will use reconciliation again to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the rest of the term, avoiding Democratic demands for reforms. Sen. Ted Cruz has even proposed using reconciliation to fund ICE for a decade, saying some Democrats may never again vote to fund the agency.
Power of the purse in crisis?
Bagenstos, now a law and public policy professor, views the broader pattern of bypassing regular appropriations and spending rules as a threat to congressional authority. The administration has refused to spend some funds Congress appropriated, such as foreign aid, while spending other funds without congressional action, for example to pay DHS employees during a shutdown.
Though Congress did approve the $75 billion, Bagenstos says bypassing the regular appropriations process is another way the legislative branch has surrendered power. “We really are at a moment when the power of the purse is in a crisis,” he says. He notes the framers of the Constitution deliberately gave the legislature control over appropriations because it is closest to the people. If Congress fails to maintain that role, he warns, future executives will be incentivized to follow a similar playbook. “If Congress doesn’t stand up, I don’t see why every executive in the future isn’t going to follow some playbook like this,” he says.