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After last week’s bipartisan vote in Congress to end the longest shutdown in U.S. history and fund the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans are moving ahead with an approximately $70 billion, party-line plan to fund Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for the rest of President Trump’s time in the White House.
The agencies were largely omitted from last week’s funding legislation because Democrats refused to back immigration enforcement funding without reforms after federal agents killed two American citizens earlier this year.
Nearly all of the money, more than $60 billion, is devoted to immigration enforcement efforts – further insulating CBP and ICE from political pressure and congressional oversight after last year’s influx of $75 billion from President Trump’s signature domestic policy agenda, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The bill also contains one billion dollars for the Secret Service, part of the DHS, for security infrastructure related to President Trump’s White House ballroom project. According to the bill text, the funds may not be used for any non-security elements of the project, which the administration says is being funded through private donations.
“The White House applauds Congress’s latest proposal in its reconciliation package which includes additional funding for security infrastructure upgrades in relation to the long overdue East Wing Modernization Project,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to NPR. “Due in part to the recent assassination attempt on President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the proposal would provide the United States Secret Service with the resources they need to fully and completely harden the White House complex.”
Democrats say the ballroom security funding is an example of frivolous spending by the Trump administration as the U.S. war on Iran continues to drive up the cost of living.
“This is hypocrisy at its finest,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote on X. “Trump’s gold-encrusted ballroom has gone from costing $200 million funded by shady donors to $1 BILLION from TAXPAYERS — snuck into the ICE bill by Senate Republicans.”
Some Republicans have proposed appropriating taxpayer money for the ballroom’s construction, but the idea has so far failed to gain traction.
The bill also contains nearly $1.5 billion for the Department of Justice operations, including terrorism investigations and prosecutions, as well as Drug Enforcement Administration Agency and FBI work.
President Trump has asked congressional Republicans to have the funding on his desk for a signature by June 1.
