The Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is located at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Irrfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
The incoming Trump administration has laid out plans to use the power of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to significantly increase the number of undocumented immigrants deported from the United States. But it faces a hurdle: ICE is already dealing with a $230 million budget shortfall, even before accounting for the costs associated with mass deportations, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the figure.
Even if Congress introduces a continuing resolution spending bill this week, ICE will still face a funding shortfall because its operations — including current levels of detaining and deporting immigrants — exceed the $8.7 billion annual budget currently allocated to it, officials said. Congress. The continuing resolution passed this week would extend current funding levels, including for ICE, through March 14.
“We are on edge,” said two officials who spoke separately. They attribute the shortfall to the agency’s historical underfunding and ICE’s growing need to deport immigrants deemed ineligible for asylum, a number that has increased since the Biden administration changed asylum policy in June.
ICE’s budget shortfall could mean Donald Trump will have to delay his plans to strengthen the agency and ramp up deportations on his first days as president.
The American Immigration Council is a pro-immigration research and advocacy group, estimate Trump’s mass deportation plan will cost more than $88 billion. Trump himself told NBC News’ Kristen Welker Earlier this month, he said there was “no cost” to carrying out the mass deportation plan.
Absent an emergency supplemental request from the White House, Congress has only two ways to fund ICE in the short term. Negotiations on next year’s spending levels will begin in earnest in January, when Republicans take control of the White House and Senate and narrowly control the House of Representatives.
Republicans could dedicate money to ICE as part of the next government spending package, but that would require compromise with Democrats, who would almost certainly need to provide the votes to pass any bill by standing order.
Republicans have also discussed using budget reconciliation to increase funding for ICE, a shaky procedural tool that allows a majority to bypass a mandatory 60-vote threshold to pass funding-related legislation. But the effort has been met with resistance from some in the party who want to conserve their political capital to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts later this year.
Both strategies will take some time to pass both houses of Congress, especially with House Speaker Mike Johnson facing a slimmer majority in the new year. And the civil unrest will make it more difficult for Trump to implement mass deportations on his first day as president.
Both officials also said they believe ICE’s broad mission has historically been underfunded. ICE Director P.J. Lechleitner told NBC News in June that ICE has nearly 8 million immigrants on its docket and that there is one ICE officer for every 7,000 cases. He called the ratio “not good,” and others within ICE said it was impossible for agents to monitor all immigrants’ movements within the country.
“We are chronically under-resourced and need more funding,” Lechleitner said at the time.
In February, the agency said it may have to consider releasing immigrants if border crossings reach a record high in 2023 but more funding for detention beds is not obtained. A border bill negotiated by senators from both parties earlier this year called for $9.5 billion for the agency, and the Biden administration’s fiscal 2025 budget calls for $9.3 billion for the agency, but those levels have not yet been reached despite calls from Republicans for the administration to Gain passage from Congress to strengthen immigration enforcement.
