ICE Is Funded Through 2029 Outside the Normal Budget: Detention Near 69,000 and 2,365 Local 287(g) Agreements
In September 2026 Immigration and Customs Enforcement made more than 48,000 arrests, according to an official speaking to NBC. Around the start of October it was holding about 69,000 people in detention. In fiscal 2025 the average was 42,500.
ICE can sustain that pace through a budget arrangement few agencies have. Its money no longer depends on the annual appropriations fight that just left most of the government on a stopgap. Two reconciliation laws, passed by simple majorities, fund ICE and the Border Patrol into early 2029.
Two reconciliation laws
The first was the July 2025 law. It put about $170.7 billion into immigration and border enforcement: $45 billion for ICE detention, $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement and hiring including 10,000 new officers, $46.6 billion for the border wall, $7.8 billion for the Border Patrol, $6.2 billion for technology and $10 billion to reimburse states. It also created new fees, including $100 to apply for asylum.
The second came out of this year’s budget fight. Homeland Security’s regular funding lapsed on 14 February 2026, after federal agents fatally shot two US citizens in Minneapolis in January and Democrats refused to fund ICE without changes. The 76-day lapse ended on 30 April with a law funding the rest of DHS but leaving out ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans then moved their money through reconciliation. The Secure America Act passed the Senate 52 to 47 and the House 214 to 212, and was signed on 10 June. It provides about $70 billion through fiscal 2029, roughly $38 billion for ICE and $26 billion for the Border Patrol.
Spending hasn’t kept pace with the money. One advocacy group estimated in May that about $103 billion of the 2025 funds remained unspent.
The enforcement numbers
DHS says ICE hired more than 12,000 officers and agents by January 2026, beating the 10,000 target and taking its workforce from about 10,000 to 22,000. That’s an agency figure that hasn’t been independently checked.
Detention hit a record of about 73,000 in mid-January 2026, fell to about 60,000 in April and climbed back to about 69,000 by October. ICE removed 319,980 people in fiscal 2025 by its own data, and more than 356,000 by late July of fiscal 2026. DHS has also claimed more than 600,000 removals plus 1.6 million voluntary departures since January 2025, without publishing its method. Researchers who track ICE data say those totals can’t be verified.
The biggest change is local. Agreements under section 287(g), which let state and local police carry out immigration enforcement, numbered 135 in January 2025. By August 2026 ICE’s tracker showed 2,365, across 39 states and two territories. Florida and Texas have the most.
Why the funding route matters
Funding an agency through reconciliation takes it out of the annual bargaining that gives Congress leverage over how money is spent. Appropriations bills carry conditions: reporting requirements, limits on certain uses, oversight provisions. Reconciliation money mostly doesn’t. That was the point. Democrats wanted to attach conditions to ICE’s funding after the Minneapolis shootings, and the majority found a way around it.
The House’s fiscal 2027 Homeland Security bill reflects the change. It provides less than the department requested, because ICE and the Border Patrol no longer need annual money for their core operations.
The arrangement runs to January 2029, the end of the current term. Whoever controls Congress then will decide whether immigration enforcement goes back into the regular budget.