Trump signs bill boosting immigration enforcement with nearly $70 billion

President Donald Trump locked in a nearly $70 billion expansion of immigration enforcement on Wednesday, signing legislation that will fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection through the end of his term. The package gives ICE about $38 billion, CBP and Border Patrol about $26 billion, and another $5 billion for unforeseen costs, making it one of the largest dedicated immigration enforcement funding measures in U.S. history.

The bill cleared the House on a 214-212 vote on Tuesday after the Senate approved it 52-47 early Friday. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican senator to vote no in the final Senate tally, and no Democrat backed the measure. Republicans pushed it through budget reconciliation, allowing them to sidestep the Senate filibuster and move the bill without needing Democratic votes.

The result closes a monthslong confrontation that followed a 76-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. That shutdown stemmed from disputes over immigration enforcement funding, after Trump signed an earlier bipartisan DHS bill in April that covered other department agencies through September 30 but left ICE and CBP out. The new law restores funding for the enforcement agencies through 2029, as reporters describe the end of Trump’s current term.

The fight in the Senate was further complicated by an unrelated $1.776 billion Trump settlement fund, which both parties tried and failed to attach restrictions to before the immigration measure advanced. In the House, Democratic leaders denounced the bill as an open-ended transfer of power to the administration. House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar called it a “$70 billion blank check” for ICE and Border Patrol, arguing the legislation gives the agencies vast resources with too few guardrails.

Speaker Mike Johnson defended the three-year funding window as a way to keep Democrats from holding immigration enforcement money hostage for the remainder of Trump’s presidency. That argument won the Capitol Hill fight, at least for now, and leaves the White House with a sharply enlarged enforcement account as the administration presses ahead with its deportation agenda. The scale of the appropriation also signals a long-term federal commitment to expanding immigration enforcement capacity, with Congress having accepted a far more aggressive financing posture than Democrats were willing to endorse.