The Department of Homeland Security is facing serious headwinds on Capitol Hill, but top immigration officials touted some major bright spots Thursday, saying ICE currently has a “surplus” of detention beds, and construction on President Trump’s border wall is under budget.
Todd Lyons, acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said his agency has become more efficient at deportations and the State Department has helped get other countries to cooperate in taking back their people.
The result, he said, is that they don’t need to detain people as long, so their bed use is actually less than capacity.
“We’re actually in a surplus right now,” Mr. Lyons told the House Appropriations Committee. “Our removal process and our increase in our removal proceedings have led to no longer having a shortfall on beds but having a stockpile.”
That could explain the drop in bed use from January, when ICE reported about 70,000 beds used, to this month, when ICE said it had about 60,000 migrants detained as of April 4. ICE, in its budget plans, said it wants to have 99,000 beds available this year and next.
ICE has been purchasing warehouse facilities around the country to set up migrant detention and processing facilities — and has met with legal and political obstacles.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, Texas Democrat, said one planned for her area near El Paso, Texas, would overwhelm the community, and she said the idea of such a massive facility is worrying.
“Those structures are meant to hold things, not people,” she said.
Mr. Lyons said ICE is in the middle of an evaluation of its needs, but he said the facilities they are envisioning would be ones “we’ll actually be proud of.”
Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott touted action on the border wall.
“I’m going to say something that you rarely hear in these hearings or anywhere in the federal government. As far as the border wall construction goes, we’re ahead of schedule and we’re below budget,” Mr. Scott said.
He said they’ve erected 50 miles of primary barrier, 13.2 miles of secondary wall and 5.5 miles of barrier in waterways along the border.
Mr. Scott said they learned from the experience in the first Trump administration, when construction was beset by court challenges and battles over property acquisition.
Mr. Scott and Mr. Lyons testified alongside Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles legal immigration applications.
The three were testifying about their 2027 budget request, even as Congress still has yet to pass their 2026 funding.
They are under a partial shutdown, though some operations are continuing under a patchwork of essential work designations and long-term funding from last year’s Big Beautiful Bill budget law.
Mr. Scott said the funding issues are still being felt.
He said he’s been unable to send agents to enhanced training to prepare for security for this year’s World Cup, which the U.S. is jointly hosting. And aircraft, boats and trucks his agency uses to guard the border can’t be serviced and are being parked.
Democrats and Republicans traded blame for the situation.
Democrats urged the House GOP to cave and adopt a Senate-passed bill that funds most of DHS but leaves the immigration enforcement agencies out. The White House has supported that bill.
But Rep. Mark Amodei, chairman of the subcommittee that oversees DHS’s budget, said Thursday the GOP isn’t likely to accept a bill that includes “goose eggs” for ICE and CBP funding.
“That dog’s going to find a real hard time hunting over here,” the Nevada Republican said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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