Jimena Bastillo

Good morning.

Republicans in Congress voted to send tens of billions of dollars to two agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

This includes $38 billion just for ICE, which is a bit over three times the previous annual budget Congress had approved.

It also includes money to hire more Border Patrol agents and for border security technology.

Congress was originally on track to fund these parts of DHS, along with many other parts of the federal government, through its normal appropriations process, but Senate Democrats pulled their support for that measure and for all of DHS funding after DHS agents shot and killed two U.S.

citizens in Minneapolis in January.

Republicans passed this bill through a tool known as reconciliation.

All you really need to know is that it's a way around the filibuster for the majority party in the Senate.

But reconciliation is not a normal way to fund an agency.

For starters, as an agency, you're supposed to get funding one fiscal year at a time.

And the ICE and Border Patrol get these dollars through 2029.

And there's no provisions that say certain amounts need to be spent in a certain time frame.

That means DHS could spend most of this as quickly or slowly as they want.

Immigration advocates warn that in regular appropriations bills, there are often provisions that, for example, mandate DHS issue reports, whether to Congress or publicly, on how the money is spent, updates on the programs they fund, and even details like the demographics of who is being detained.

And none of those requirements are in this measure.

Not really.

In April, Congress did pass a bill to fund all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol, and that bill did include more money for body cameras, stipulate congressional oversight of detention centers, and de-escalation training for officers and agents.

But

Democrats had been hoping to codify a mandate for officers to wear the body cameras, and they didn't get that.

And they also didn't get any provision on the warrants officers must use to enter homes or limits on face coverings.