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ICE funding fight
A proposed budget package would give $70 mil millones al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS), the agency that oversees the Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) and the Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP), and would increase ICE’s budget in 2026 while funding it through 2029.
“otorgaría 70 mil millones de dólares al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS)”
Conexión Migrante says the package would provide “70 mil millones” to ICE and CBP and that the Senate is expected to vote definitively during the third week of May 2026 on whether the money is redirected toward social welfare or toward “la expansión desregulada de la infraestructura de deportación.”
The same article reports that the U.S. Congress is using a budget reconciliation mechanism that allows legislation to advance without the 60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome obstructionism (filibuster).
Conexión Migrante adds that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has “profunda preocupación” about how quickly the resources will be spent because there are “total ausencia de restricciones temporales y auditorías,” and it cites that ICE received 45 mil millones de dólares for detention projected to be used until 2029 but decided to spend 38 mil millones immediately to convert warehouses into new private detention centers.
The article also says a DHS official confirmed the agency is on track to commit 75% of all funds from the previous law by the end of September, while it links the funding push to the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 proposal presented in April.
Anti-weaponization fund standoff
A separate U.S. fight over immigration enforcement funding has centered on an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that the Department of Justice said it would abide by after a federal judge blocked the fund created as part of a settlement in President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Daily Signal reports that the $1.77 billion fund was meant to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” and it says the DOJ wrote that the fund “will abide by the Court’s ruling.”
Roll Call says the Trump administration prepared to abandon its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” after GOP backlash, and it reports that the Justice Department said the administration “disagrees strongly” with the ruling while still complying.
Roll Call also quotes Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., saying, “I made my views clear on the subject, and we’ll see what happens,” and it describes Democrats preparing amendments during the “vote-a-rama” to prohibit the fund.
PBS, citing Associated Press, quotes Thune saying, “I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” and it frames the fund as having caused a standoff that left Republicans without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.
Detention, legal aid, and ICE
Beyond the ICE budget and the anti-weaponization fund, Democrats in the U.S. Congress are seeking to block DHS funding for ICE and replace it with a new agency under the Department of Justice, according to Ro Khanna, the California progressive who leads the effort.
“ICE budget is literally going to triple”
Telemundo 52 reports Khanna’s argument that Democrats oppose the “bloated ICE budget” because “ICE budget is literally going to triple,” adding $18 billion annually for four years to its usual resources, which the article says already total $10 billion per year.
Telemundo 52 also says ICE’s force grew by 120% after hiring 12,000 agents, bringing the total to 22,000, and it links the push to the death of Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen whom a border agent shot on January 7 during an operation in Minneapolis.
La Nación reports that the DOJ dismantled federal immigrant legal aid programs and reassigned the lawyers who ran them, leaving organizations in Illinois without operational support, and it says the FY 2026 budget contemplates a reduction of approximately $850 million in DOJ grants.
In Chicago, La Nación says the elimination of the Legal Orientation Program (LOP) and the Unaccompanied Children Assistance Initiative generates operational consequences in immigration courts, and it adds that immigration court backlogs “currently exceed 3.5 million nationwide,” while it contrasts the 2026 budget’s detention expansion request for 50,000 detention beds with cuts or eliminations for legal defense of vulnerable populations.
