ICE Could Run Out Of Money In Weeks — Trump’s Immigration Push Now Threatens To Break The Budget: Report
The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration stance is reportedly causing a financial strain on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the agency at risk of running out of funds by next month.
What Happened: ICE, the agency responsible for detaining and deporting unauthorized immigrants, is reportedly over budget by $1 billion, with more than three months left in the fiscal year, Axios reported. This has raised concerns among lawmakers from both parties, who fear that President Trump might divert funds from other agencies to keep ICE afloat, the report added.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, also risks breaching U.S. law if it maintains its current spending pace. This has intensified calls for the passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which could allocate an additional $75 billion to ICE over the span of five years, the report said.
The funding crisis is attributed to the Trump administration’s demand for ICE to arrest 3,000 immigrants daily, a pace that ICE is struggling to meet. The agency’s detention facilities, with about 41,000 beds, are well beyond capacity, prompting DHS to seek additional detention space both in the U.S. as well as overseas.
DHS recently reallocated nearly $500 million to fund immigration operations, but it still needs at least $2 billion more by September. Lawmakers warn the agency could run out of money by July, risking a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
ICE did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.
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Why It Matters: The financial crisis at ICE comes in the wake of President Trump’s directive to ICE to initiate the “single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” targeting cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.
Additionally, ICE has been leveraging a network of AI-powered license plate cameras, installed across more than 5,000 communities in the U.S., to track immigration activity. This has further strained the agency’s resources, contributing to its current financial predicament and raising concerns over privacy and civil liberties.
In May, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) accused the Trump administration of channeling money to private prison companies running immigration detention centers.
If Trump’s bill fails to pass soon, he may declare a national emergency to divert funds from other government departments to ICE, says Chris Marisola, a former Defense Department lawyer and professor at the University of Houston Law Center, as per Axios. Notably, this move could be similar to Trump’s 2020 decision to divert nearly $4 billion from the Pentagon to fund his border wall project.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
