Law enforcement officers search suspects' vehicle for illicit drugs
St. Johns County Sheriff's officers search a car for drugs on I-95 in St. Johns County, Florida, on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (Fox News Digital)
The Trump-endorsed bill to avert a government shutdown includes hundreds of millions of dollars to allow for arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The bill was passed in the House on Tuesday along partisan lines and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. It must be signed by President Donald Trump on Friday before midnight to avoid a partial shutdown.
The bill includes $485 million to address shortfalls in ICE funding for immigration detention beds, transportation and deportations.
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Funding has long been an issue for ICE, and the pressures have increased with the new push for additional arrests and deportations by the Trump administration. Officials said on Wednesday that, so far, agents were on track to have arrested more illegal immigrants in the first months of the Trump administration than in all of fiscal year (FY) 2024.
White House border czar Tom Homan speaks with reporters at the White House, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP )
In FY 2024, ICE enforcement removal operations made 33,242 arrests. For comparison, officials say that ICE made 32,809 arrests from January 20 to March 10, meaning they would surpass the FY 2024 number this year.
Of those arrests, 14,111 were convicted criminals, and 9,980 have pending criminal charges. Over 1,150 were suspected gang members, two and a half times the 483 arrested in the same period last year.
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Meanwhile, officials have said that they are at maximum capacity for ICE detention beds. Border czar Tom Homan said this week that ICE currently has 46,000 people detained and is on track to run out of beds in two weeks.
RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, stressed that the additional funding is a "backfill" rather than a new infusion of funding, and that more is needed when a budget reconciliation bill is drawn up.
"There are so many shortfalls in the ICE accounts right now. The Trump administration is doing all they can with reprogramming, and the CR simply backfills," Hauman said. "The clock is ticking on the reconciliation front. Every delay lets Biden’s chaos fester."
Democrats, meanwhile, have criticized the continuing resolution (CR) on immigration. In a statement, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee said that the bill would allow "critical oversight directives" for the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to fall away, including language access, and allow for "sweeping changes" to the immigration court system.
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They argue that it makes it easier for the Trump administration to pull DOJ law enforcement from their current duties and focus instead on immigration enforcement. They also say the bill allows the administration "to steer funding provided to stop the flow of fentanyl, and instead spend that money on mass deportation initiatives."
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Overall, Republicans say the bill would trim $13 billion in non-defense spending from the levels in the 2024 budget year and increase defense spending by $6 billion.
Fox News' Liz Elkind, Bill Melugin and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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