The Senate is debating President Donald Trump's administration's budget package, including the Homeland Security Bill, where the House of Representatives included additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), without any requirements regarding respect for the civil and human rights of immigrants.

The Democratic minority leader in the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) conditioned his support for the budget bill on several conditions, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ending roving patrols and strengthening rules on warrants. The bill also seeks to hold ICE accountable for potential abuses and maintain a unified code of conduct for agents, including prohibiting officers from operating with their faces covered. Margy O'Herron, an expert on immigration law and policy at the Brennan Center for Justice, believes that DHS immigration agencies should not receive more funding, given that they were allocated over $170 billion last year. “They have spent only a fraction of their enormous budgets, much of it on violent raids against immigrants and protesters,” she noted in an analysis shared on X. In July, Congress allocated the massive sum of $170 billion to DHS, in addition to what it had already received. 2025, which significantly increased its account for immigration enforcement.

She added that of those funds, $85 billion “was immediately available to ICE.”

“The July funding law also added an additional $65 billion to CBP's $20 billion 2025 budget, increasing its funding to more than double the entire military budget of our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, combined,” the expert noted.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, has participated in the most violent operations against immigrants and in the repression of protesters in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by agents.

O'Herron adds that ICE “has spent approximately 2.5%” of its current available budget, which would be used to hire about 10,000 officers for President Trump's mass deportation plan.

“ICE has spent more on detention and, by the end of November, had approximately 66,000 migrants in custody—almost three-quarters of them without a criminal conviction, which is a record in the country's history,” the expert noted. “ICE has also signed contracts to acquire surveillance technology, including facial recognition, remote hacking, social media monitoring, and cell phone tracking.”

Nor has CBP, she said, spent enough of its allocated funds, using only 4% of its multibillion-dollar budget.

“More and more CBP agents have been mobilized within the country to arrest and detain immigrants and have reportedly been involved in acts of violence against protesters, including the death of Alex Pretti,” the expert noted.

The Senate is reviewing the budget bills passed on January 22, 2026, by the House of Representatives, which include an additional $10 billion for ICE.

“It also allocates approximately $180 billion to CBP, bringing its total to over $90 billion,” she explained. “Now is not the time to send another hefty check to these agencies.”

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