Immigration and Customs Enforcement could run out of money as soon as next month amid the Trump administration’s ramped-up efforts to deport unauthorized immigrants.
While there are more than three months left in the fiscal year, one estimate has found that the agency is already $1 billion over budget, according to Axios. Legislators in both parties have raised concerns about the speed at which the agency is spending its funds, which may prompt President Donald Trump to seek additional funds from other agencies to support his deportation efforts.
Lawmakers have stated that the department responsible for ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, overseen by Secretary Kristi Noem, could violate the law if it continues to spend at current levels.
The spending situation has created extra pressure to pass the “Big, Beautiful Bill” in Congress as it would hand ICE an additional $75 billion over the next half-decade. Some lawmakers have argued that DHS and ICE are wasting money.
The top Democrat on the DHS appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said, “Trump’s DHS is spending like drunken sailors.”
The money crunch comes as the Trump White House is demanding that ICE agents detain 3,000 immigrants a day, levels the agency has yet to reach.
DHS has about 41,000 beds in its detention facilities, which are over capacity, and the department is looking for further detention space both in the U.S. and abroad.
Trump may declare a national emergency to send money to ICE from other parts of the government. In 2020, he used the measure to use $4 billion of the Pentagon’s money to fund his border wall.
A former budget official told Axios: “I have a feeling they’re going to grant themselves an exception apportionment, use the life and safety exception, and just keep burning money.”
University of Houston Law Center professor and former Defense Department attorney Chris Marisola told the outlet that “You could imagine a new emergency declaration that pertains to interior enforcement that would trigger the same kind of emergency personnel mobilization statutes.”
He added that “These statutory authorities authorizing the president to declare emergencies” unlock “a whole host of other authorities for these departments and agencies [that] are often written incredibly broadly and invest a lot of discretion in the president.”
The Trump White House has been trying to increase its power over the federal budget by overspending the budget of DHS, and the Office of Management and Budget has ceased sharing publicly how much money it’s spending across the government. The administration has also stopped agencies from spending funds appropriated by Congress for a number of programs.
DHS recently took the step of moving nearly $500 million from within its own funds to support its immigration clampdown. However, the agency has requested an extra $2 billion to meet its needs by the end of September.
Lawmakers have noted that DHS could run out of money as soon as July, which would violate the Antideficiency Act, which bans agencies from obligating or spending federal funds that have not been congressionally appropriated. Although no one has been previously charged under the Act, agency officials may face criminal charges or fines.
Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, told Axios that “President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is critical to ensure we have the funding to secure our homeland for generations and deliver on the American people’s mandate for safety and security.”
The top Republican on the House DHS appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, told Axios that “we’re watching” the Senate budget negotiations.
“If there’s much of a hiccup in that, those concerns are all capital ‘C’ concerns,” he said.
Murphy added: “They are spending likely in the neighborhood of a billion dollars more at ICE than we authorized, and that’s patently illegal.”
“They cannot invent money. They cannot print money. They don’t have the money to spend that they’re spending,” he said.
