Trump's new fiscal package allows ICE to hire agents and expedite the deportation of illegal immigrants
With the recent approval of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB, for its acronym in English), the flagship fiscal package of Trump's administration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is emerging as one of the most important federal security agencies in the country.
The agency will receive a budget injection that will place it with a larger budget than all other federal government agencies dedicated to the country's security, including the FBI.
In total, the OBBB allocates $170 billion to guarantee the functions of the Department of Homeland Security, chaired by Trump supporter Kristi Noem. Of that amount, $75 billion will be allocated to ICE.
The legislation assigns part of this extraordinary amount to different functions: for example, nearly $30 billion is allocated to the hiring and training of agents, while another $45 billion is added to increase the detention capacity for illegal aliens over the next two years.
Then, another $14.4 billion will be reserved to finance the transportation of deported individuals, a measure that includes repatriation flights to the countries of origin of illegal immigrants or to third countries willing to accept illegal immigrants.
This funding already detailed—which in summary will be used to hire agents, create new detention spaces, and finance ICE deportation operations—translates into annual funding of more than $25 billion until fiscal year 2029.
In comparison, $11.3 billion was the funding requested by the FBI for the entire fiscal year 2025.
Together with the drastic increase, the fiscal package grants ICE the authority to hire agents to help it approach the migration goal requested by President Trump: 1 million deported individuals per year.
Currently, the agency has 20,000 agents and support staff distributed across 400 offices throughout the country. With the new funding, more than 10,000 employees could join the force.
Although the migration chaos that existed at the Mexico–United States border left by Biden was solved since Trump's return to the White House, the OBBB doesn't hesitate to allocate $46.5 billion to complete Trump's great last campaign promise: finishing the construction of the border wall.
