House spending bill would fund ICE over Democrats’ objections

Congressional leaders struck a deal Tuesday to keep money flowing to ICE, setting up a showdown for rank-and-file Democrats who have demanded deep cuts or even defunding the government’s chief deportation agency.

The agreement, which will need to be passed before the end of the month to avoid a lapse in funding, erases some of the last vestiges of President Biden’s immigration policy, such as funding for nonprofits that helped settle illegal immigrants and trims the budget of several ombudsman positions within the Department of Homeland Security.

Negotiators also struck deals on a package of three other annual appropriations measures. They fund the Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development departments.

Under the DHS deal, both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol will see their annual allocation of money dip, which Democratic leaders cast as a victory. But both ICE and the Border Patrol got massive infusions of cash in last year’s budget bill that will more than make up for the reductions.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, one of Democrats’ chief negotiators on the bill, said she did win more oversight from the DHS inspector general, though she acknowledged it didn’t include a host of other restrictions her party had sought on ICE.

“I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE,” she said, though she told them that resistance was futile, given the $75 billion that ICE got in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill budget law.

Ms. DeLauro argued the new agreement is better than continuing to fund DHS on a stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, which she argued would “jettison” what new restrictions and oversight Democrats secured in the bill.

She pointed out that the ICE funding is part of a broader DHS spending bill that also includes money for the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other critical work.

Ms. DeLauro said a battle that leads to a shutdown would leave those TSA officers without pay and delays in FEMA assistance.

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Democrats’ other top negotiator, said Republicans wanted to increase ICE funding in the bill and Democrats stopped that.

She, too, pleaded with her colleagues not to force a shutdown showdown over the bill.

“There is much more we must do to rein in DHS, which I will continue to press for. But the hard truth is that Democrats must win political power to enact the kind of accountability we need,” she said.

Democrats said the bill cuts Customs and Border Protection’s annual appropriation by $1.8 billion and ICE’s annual funding by $115 million.

Ms. DeLauro said that reduces the potential detention space by 5,500 beds — though there, again, ICE got money to sustain a large number of beds through the budget law, and that is not affected by the cut in the new bill.

Republicans said the bill would “end the weak, Biden-era posture that fueled the worst border crisis in history.”

Anger at ICE has boiled over among Democrats since President Trump took office and ordered “mass deportations.”

Democrats say those deportations have gone too far, snaring migrants who don’t have serious criminal records, and they object to ICE making forays into communities to arrest migrants that sanctuary jurisdictions have declined to turn over.

The situation escalated this month with three DHS-involved shootings, one in Oregon and two in Minneapolis. One of those left a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, dead after a confrontation with ICE officers.

GOP leaders have agreed to let the DHS bill receive a separate vote from the other three non-DHS bills, which will be voted on as a package, along with some unrelated health provisions, House Democrats said.

If both votes pass, there would be a final vote to send all four measures to the Senate as a single package.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, hailed the work.

“At every level, it applies innovation and discipline to deliver results without waste,” he said.

The four bills are the last of the dozen bills required to keep the government open to be released. They apply to fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1.

The government has been operating under 2024 levels of spending for the past 15 months while Congress and the White House couldn’t agree on updates.

The clash led to the government shutdown — the longest in history — last fall.