Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reportedly already $2 billion short to keep up its current pace of operations through the end of this fiscal year, as it races to keep up with the Trump administration’s promises to rapidly deport millions of undocumented migrants.
The immigration agency could get an infusion of $500 million as part of the ongoing government funding negotiations in Congress, but that still wouldn’t plug the hole, Axios reports.
"Just the bed space alone becomes very significant. And to just be able to detain people for a couple of days while they're processing, and then to be able to move out flights ... is exceptionally expensive,” Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma told the outlet.
The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, could pull funding from other component agencies like the Coast Guard or Federal Emergency Management Agency and redirect it toward immigration efforts.
The Independent has contacted ICE for comment.
The agency said this week it is already thousands of bed above its max detention capacity, and is holding some 47,000 detainees awaiting deportation.
An ICE official told reporters the agency is working with federal partners at the Defense Department, Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons to ramp up bed space.
Continued funding and facilities expansion will likely be needed if ICE keeps up its current blistering pace of deportations.
It has made about 32,000 immigration arrests since Trump took office, according to Reuters, a faster pace than the final fiscal year of the Biden administration, Reuters reports.
“We need the money to continue, don’t we?” White House border czar Tom Homan said earlier this month. “ICE is already in the hole, and we need Congress to step up and give us the funding we need so President Trump will keep his promise to American people.”
At the same time, some of the agency’s deportation efforts have wound down. In February, the government emptied out facilities holding migrants at the Guantánamo Bay naval station, in the midst of a lawsuit accusing officials of denying migrants access to legal aid.
ICE may face further strain if the administration’s plans take effect.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it will cost $26.9 billion to fully enforce the recently passed Laken Riley Act, which dramatically expands the ranks of those held in detention before deportation to include those accused of low-level crimes.
The White House is also reportedly preparing a controversial step to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a law that grants broad powers for mass deportations with minimal review, a provision that’s only been used in times of war.
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