Boosting ICE budgets is bipartisan
Polygraph | Newsletter n°303 | 13 May 2025
IN THIS NEWSLETTER: ICE funding, 2016–2025, and the politics behind it.
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Situation
Criticizing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) could be making a comeback among Democrats after ICE agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Friday and the Department of Homeland Security (which oversees the agency) threatened to arrest the three Democratic members of Congress who were with him.
After the incident, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) released a statement defending his fellow Democrats and condemning the arrest and the ICE agents “who physically accosted two Congresswomen.” I don’t know what physically accosted means, either.
The extent of Democrats’ criticism
Strongly worded statements and promises of oversight appear, at least for now, to be as far as top congressional Democrats like Rep. Jeffries are willing to go. In his statement, Jeffries said the incident “will be heavily scrutinized in this congressional term,” noting Congress’ “constitutional responsibility” to conduct oversight.
Oversight is important, but controlling federal spending is Congress’ more exalted constitutional responsibility — and the one more relevant here. What more does ICE have to do for Democratic leaders to endorse cutting its budget?
For his part, Jeffries voted for legislation that increased ICE funding in 2022, 2023, and 2024, during which time its budget grew by $1.5 billion. He voted against a bill that would’ve cut ICE funding by $50 million in 2021 and supported one that increased it by $285 million in 2020. The caveat to all this is that these votes were on broad spending bills that covered far more than ICE. But that’s exactly the point: despite the horrors it enables, ICE’s budget isn’t an issue anywhere close to being considered a deal-breaker.
The ICE budget
The chart below shows ICE funding from 2016–25. The red columns represent Trump’s budgets, the blue ones Biden’s. The 2025 budget wasn’t enacted until March, but I assigned it to Biden because it was a continuing resolution that largely maintained 2024 funding levels that were enacted under Biden. Additionally, the enacted ICE funding is very close to the $9.7 billion Biden proposed for 2025 in his final budget request.
There’s no competition to see which party’s president can increase ICE’s budget more, but if there were, Republicans would be winning — though only by a very small margin:
Under Trump: 27% increase in ICE’s budget (+$1.8 billion), 7% average year-to-year increase.
Under Biden: 20% increase in ICE’s budget (+$1.6 billion), 5% average year-to-year increase.
No further comments.1
^Alt text for screen readers: Boosting ICE funding is bipartisan. This column chart shows ICE funding from 2016–2025. In red are Trump budgets, from 2018–2021. In blue are Biden budgets, from 2022–2025. ICE funding went from $6.8 billion in 2017 to $8.4 billion in 2021, to $10 billion in 2025. The 2025 budget passed after Biden left office but largely continued 2024 funding. ICE spending rose by less than $50 million. Data: CRS, Public Law 119–4.
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-Stephen (Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Bluesky)
Actually just one. A methodological note: The comparison for FY2017 is adjusted by $237 million (i.e., 2017 enacted amount minus $237 million), to represent the supplemental funding Trump added to the budget. Otherwise, the amount Trump increased the ICE budget would be understated.