ICE, CBP funding hits another roadblock

Our team at the Immigration Accountability Project wishes you a meaningful and reflective Memorial Day weekend.

Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) abruptly canceled votes on budget reconciliation legislation on Thursday and instead sent Senators home for the weeklong Memorial Day recess. 

The budget reconciliation bill would provide approximately $32 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $26 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The agencies have gone without funding from Congress since February of this year, when Democrats refused to pass the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill unless it included a list of demands that would essentially end all immigration enforcement.

The canceled vote means that Congress will miss Pres. Trump's June 1st deadline to provide funding for ICE and CBP.

Unfortunately, the controversy over the budget reconciliation bill has nothing to do with funding for immigration enforcement. Senators disagreed with a recently announced $1.8 billion Department of Justice Anti-Weaponization Fund for “victims of lawfare and weaponization” that was part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit brought by Pres. Trump. There was also pushback from lawmakers over language in the reconciliation bill to provide a billion dollars to pay for security enhancements for the new White House ballroom. This provision has reportedly been removed from the bill.

We hope the Senate can work out its issues during the recess week, so it can quickly pass the funding package when Congress returns to town. Of course, it’ll still need approval from the House before it can be signed by Pres. Trump.

The funding is desperately needed to help the immigration enforcement agencies return to their task of fulfilling Pres. Trump's campaign promise to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in American history.

Border Czar says deportations to ramp up

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, White House Border Czar Tom Homan said that the Trump Administration has deported 800,000 illegal aliens since taking office last January. He added that there's a plan in place to increase those numbers in the future.

"Total of 800,000 [have been removed] out of the country," Homan said. "If you take 60% of that, criminals, hundreds of thousands of public safety threats, have been removed from this country."

The Immigration Accountability Project helped launch the Mass Deportation Coalition earlier this year. The Coalition released a lengthy playbook on April 1st that provides a roadmap for the Trump Administration on how it can achieve at least one million deportations in 2026 and more in future years. (Read the playbook at MassDeportation.com.) Homan referenced the effort and defended the administration's efforts thus far.

"I know there's a lot of noise out there about, 'You shouldn't be just concentrating on criminals, you ought to be arresting everybody,' but we are pursuing a broad range of arrests."

Homan admitted that the pace of deportations has slowed since the start of the year, but said there's a plan to ramp back up.

"There's a lot of argument within the world that, 'Are we keeping our promise?" Homan said. "Numbers are slightly down, but there's a plan. Get them back up and even higher."

Rep. Timmons moves up in Immigration Rankings

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) moved up seven spots in this week's update of IAP Action's Congressional Immigration Rankings. Rep. Timmons cosponsored H.Res. 50 that recognizes that the United States Constitution explicitly reserves to the States the sovereign power to repel an invasion and defend their citizenry from the overwhelming and "imminent danger" posed by paramilitary, narco-terrorist cartels, terrorists, and criminal actors who seized control of our southern border. Rep. Timmons ranks No. 88 in the House rankings.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) dropped five spots this week after cosponsoring H.R. 5283. The bill would "recapture" thousands of "unused visas" to use for healthcare workers. The problem with this is that any visas that are not used in one year are passed on the cap for the following year, so there are no “unused visas” in our system. This is simply a gimmick to increase the numbers of green cards. Rep. Pingree ranks No. 380 in the House.

There were no significant changes in the Senate rankings.

You can view the full Immigration Rankings at IAPAction.com.

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Next Week

The House and Senate are out for the Memorial Day recess.