Eight months after congressional Republicans approved roughly $191 billion in spending for President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, the Department of Homeland Security has an estimated $150 billion left to spend, according to a new analysis provided first to MS NOW by FWD.us, a group that studies immigration policy and advocates for reforms.
DHS has not disclosed how it intends to spend all the funds. The analysis was compiled based on comparisons to past Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection budgets, DHS dispersals beginning last fall, and information shared by Hill and DHS sources.
The sum would be enough to fund the entire DHS — excluding the Coast Guard — until the fourth quarter of 2027, according to the advocacy group’s analysis. The reconciliation bill also appropriated roughly $75 billion for ICE; if ICE were to operate under its pre-Trump spending rate of roughly $10 billion per year, it would have enough funds via DHS to sustain it until 2033. (In 2024, the last full year of Joe Biden’s presidency, ICE’s total budget was roughly $9.6 billion.)
The party-line spending bill included $22 billion for unspecified immigration enforcement with “no line items” and “no oversight requirements,” according to FWD.us’ analysis.
One of the largest appropriations is for detention capacity — new facilities to hold tens of thousands of immigrants the administration is seeking to detain and eventually deport. Some $45 billion is allocated for detention facilities, many of which DHS has yet to fully open or find locations for, accounting for 60% of the money funneled to ICE in the president’s spending bill in 2025.
In December, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem came under scrutiny from White House officials, including Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s deportation agenda. Miller was frustrated by the pace of DHS’ spending on detention centers, viewing it as too slow, according to a White House official and a federal official familiar with the matter.
Noem faced criticism again early this year over her response to the killings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski have also been criticized for their management of the agency, creating what some current and former DHS officials describe as a culture of fear at the department.
Even so, Trump continues to publicly stand by Noem, praising her work as one of the most public faces of his deportation campaign.
Last summer, Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in a party-line vote. It included roughly $191 billion to carry out Trump’s promised mass deportation campaign as the administration pushed for some 3,000 daily arrests. After regular DHS appropriations lapsed on Feb. 14, Democrats have opposed further DHS funding unless Trump and Republicans agree to restrictions on federal immigration agents.
On Thursday, House Democrats received a briefing on polling around DHS and ICE as they craft messaging ahead of the November midterms. Democrats see an advantage in contrasting the billions spent on Trump’s immigration enforcement with the hundreds of billions in funding cuts to health care pushed by the president.
Laura Barrón-López covers the White House for MS NOW.