U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has access to as much as $85 billion in funding under a law enacted in July 2025, a sharp increase that NPR reports would make it the best-funded U.S. law enforcement agency by total available resources. The increase largely reflects a $75 billion multiyear supplement added to ICE’s roughly $10 billion annual base budget as the Trump administration pursues a goal of deporting up to 1 million people each year.
Just 10 years ago, ICE’s annual budget was under $6 billion, smaller than other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, according to congressional budget documents cited by NPR. ICE was created in 2003 by combining parts of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
NPR links ICE’s expanded mission and funding to shifts in migration and federal policy over the past decade. Border Patrol and other federal authorities recorded a spike in migrant encounters in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term. Encounters then fell as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted use of the Title 42 public-health authority to rapidly expel many migrants, before surging again under President Joe Biden—reaching more than 3.2 million in 2023—after Title 42 was lifted. By late 2024, the number of arrivals was dropping amid tightened U.S. asylum rules and stepped-up enforcement by Mexico, NPR reported.
The July 2025 law—known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—provided ICE a $75 billion supplement that can be spent over as long as four years, in addition to an annual base budget NPR described as around $10 billion. If spread evenly and if other funding stays near recent levels, NPR calculated the agency would have close to $29 billion per year available—roughly triple its recent annual resources. For comparison, the Trump administration’s 2026 budget request for the entire Justice Department, including the FBI, was a little over $35 billion, NPR reported.
A major share of the new funding is designated for detention. NPR reported the law allocates $45 billion for ICE to expand its detention system, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stating in June 2025 that capacity could reach 100,000 people held per day. As of Nov. 30, 2025, about 65,735 people were in immigration detention, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) cited by NPR.
ICE has also intensified recruiting. The agency said it more than doubled its officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000 in 2025, NPR reported, noting that federal workforce statistics maintained by the Office of Personnel Management were only updated through Nov. 30 and may not reflect late-year hiring. DHS also said ICE received about 220,000 applications in 2025, aided by incentives including signing bonuses of up to $50,000 over a five-year commitment and up to $60,000 in student-loan repayment. A USAJobs posting cited by NPR listed openings for deportation officers in at least 25 cities, with starting salaries ranging from $51,632 to $84,277.
The expansion has drawn sharp criticism from immigration advocates and some former officials. Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Justice told NPR that, counting the new law and other appropriations, ICE’s funding is larger than the combined annual budgets of other federal law enforcement agencies. Margy O’Herron, a Brennan Center senior fellow who previously worked at the Justice Department during the Biden administration, said the spending priorities are heavily tilted toward arrests, detention and deportations rather than immigration courts and judges.
Supporters argue the additional funding matches the administration’s ambitions. Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told NPR the boost is “directly commensurate with the size of the task,” linking it to policy decisions that, according to NPR, stripped legal status from about 1.6 million immigrants in 2025.
NPR also reported growing concern over conditions in detention and the rising number of deaths in ICE custody. ICE reported seven deaths in December 2025 and three additional deaths by Jan. 16, 2026, according to figures NPR cited from the agency. With base-level funding for DHS and ICE due to expire at the end of January 2026, Democrats in Congress have called for operational changes at ICE as lawmakers negotiate broader government funding legislation.
