“Big, beautiful bill” gives ICE unprecedented funds to ramp up deportations

The “big, beautiful bill” signed into law by President Trump last week will allow him to dramatically expand his immigration crackdown, giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement an unprecedented pool of funding to bolster its efforts to arrest and deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

The money allocated by the law amounts to the largest infusion of funds Congress has given the federal government for immigration enforcement, at a time when the Trump administration has vowed to oversee a deportation campaign of unprecedented proportions.

Overall, the Republican-led Congress set aside roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security efforts through the legislation, including $75 billion in extra funding for ICE, making it by far the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.

“The bill will supercharge immigration enforcement,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

Here’s a look at what the new funds will be used for:

$45 billion for ICE’s detention system

The law gives ICE $45 billion to expand its already sprawling detention system over the next four years, letting officials use the money to hold both single adults and families with children facing deportation.

Based on cost estimates, the money could allow ICE to hold more than 100,000 detainees at any given time, roughly doubling the current capacity. On Wednesday morning, ICE was holding just over 58,000 individuals in its detention network, which was previously funded for 41,500 beds, according to internal agency data obtained by CBS News.

ICE’s detention network mainly consists of facilities operated by for-profit prison companies and county jails. The Trump administration has also been exploring using military facilities in the U.S. to hold detainees before they are deported. The naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been housing some ICE detainees since February.

$30 billion for ICE’s arrest and deportation efforts

ICE is also receiving nearly $30 billion in additional money to fund every single stage of the deportation process.

Congress said ICE can use the money to hire additional deportation officers and other staff; retain current personnel through bonuses; increase transportation assets supporting deportation efforts; and expand and facilitate agreements that allow state and local officials to enforce federal immigration laws.

The funds can also be used to modernize ICE’s fleet of deportation planes and hire more agency prosecutors whose job it is to persuade immigration judges that unauthorized immigrants should be deported. 

The Department of Homeland Security has said the money could pave the way for ICE to hire 10,000 deportation officers. The agency currently has fewer than 6,000 officers in its deportation branch, though the Trump administration has tasked other federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, to support immigration arrests throughout the country.

Tens of billions of dollars for other immigration and border efforts

The “big, beautiful bill” allocates tens of billions of dollars for other types of immigration-related enforcement, including along the U.S.-Mexico border.

More than $46 billion is allocated for Customs and Border Protection to build walls, barriers and related projects along the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency received an additional $12 billion to fund Border Patrol agent vehicles, facilities, training, hiring and bonuses.

While the money is allocated for CBP, the Trump administration has been using hundreds of Border Patrol agents in the interior of the country to help ICE arrest unauthorized immigrants in places like Los Angeles. That deployment has come amid historically low levels of illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border. 

The law also gives the Department of Homeland Security a catch-all pool of $10 billion to support its “mission to safeguard the borders of the United States.” Another $13.5 billion was set aside to reimburse states for their immigration enforcement and border security actions, including for efforts under the Biden administration. 

That money for states could allow Texas to be paid back for Operation Lone Star, under which the state deployed National Guardsmen to fortify the southern border and bussed thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities. It could also fund actions taken by states like Florida to aid the Trump administration’s deportation campaign by deputizing state officials as immigration agents and offering facilities, like the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” to hold detainees awaiting deportation.  

ICE heads hails funds; but critics have concerns

In a statement, Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, hailed passage of the “big, beautiful bill.” 

“The unprecedented funding for ICE will enable my hard-working officers and agents to continue making America safe again by identifying, arresting and removing criminal aliens from our communities,” Lyons said.

But critics of the administration have denounced Republican lawmakers for giving billions of dollars to an agency under fire in many parts of the country over concerns that its enforcement operations have been too aggressive and indiscriminate.

Andrea Flores, a former Biden administration immigration official, warned that the money given to ICE would lead to dire humanitarian, legal and economic consequences, including “inhumane” conditions at detention facilities.

“The administration now has the resources it needs to carry out more deportations than we have ever seen in modern history,” said Flores, who now serves as a vice president at FWD.US, a bipartisan group that supports liberal immigration policies.