Merkley Demands Independent Probe of Funds Used by ICE, CBP to Carry Out Trump’s Cruel Immigration Enforcement

DHS Yet to Provide Clear Accounting for Nearly $170 Million from Trump's Big, Ugly Betrayal Appropriated for Immigration Enforcement

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, led 20 of his Senate colleagues in calling on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to probe the cost of President Donald Trump's violent escalation of federal immigration enforcement. The senators are requesting a comprehensive assessment and accounting of the supplemental funds, including the roughly $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and approximately $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), provided by Trump's Big, Ugly Betrayal Bill.

"Last summer, Congress provided extraordinary supplemental resources for immigration enforcement in H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including roughly $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and approximately $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These sums represent a dramatic expansion of those agencies' typical annual budgets. Yet there is no comprehensive public accounting of how funds provided for immigration enforcement in H.R. 1 are being obligated and/or spent," wrote the senators.

"This lack of transparency is part of a broader pattern in which the Trump administration has expanded domestic security operations while withholding basic cost information from Congress. We have serious concerns that this pattern reflects an increasingly authoritarian and unchecked approach to executive power. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that federal agencies are not using taxpayer dollars in ways that vitiate Americans' civil rights or expand executive overreach," the senators continued.

In addition to Merkley, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined the letter.

Recently, CBO told Merkley that the Trump Administration could spend upwards of $125 million in its attempt to rename the DOD. Similar to Trump's attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself, without action by Congress to pass legislation to legally rename DOD, the President's executive order is an unofficial and symbolic designation. CBO also told Merkley that Trump's brazen decision to deploy National Guard personnel to U.S. cities, including Portland, has cost taxpayers upwards of $589 million to date and will cost a total of $1 billion in 2026 absent a change in current deployment plans.

The full request of CBO can be found HERE.

Dr. Swagel:

We are deeply concerned by the Trump administration's reckless immigration enforcement surge-unfolding on our streets and undertaken with virtually no transparency or accountability. It represents one of the largest expansions of federal immigration enforcement in modern history, including unprecedented increases in detention capacity, personnel, transportation, surveillance systems, and tactical deployments.

Last summer, Congress provided extraordinary supplemental resources for immigration enforcement in H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including roughly $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and approximately $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These sums represent a dramatic expansion of those agencies' typical annual budgets. Yet there is no comprehensive public accounting of how funds provided for immigration enforcement in H.R. 1 are being obligated and/or spent.

This lack of transparency is part of a broader pattern in which the Trump administration has expanded domestic security operations while withholding basic cost information from Congress. We have serious concerns that this pattern reflects an increasingly authoritarian and unchecked approach to executive power. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that federal agencies are not using taxpayer dollars in ways that vitiate Americans' civil rights or expand executive overreach.

To support constitutional and statutory oversight, we request that CBO provide an independent assessment of the costs, obligations, and spending patterns associated with the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies-both at the border and throughout the interior of the United States. Specifically, we ask CBO to:

• Determine how much of the $75 billion provided by H.R. 1 to ICE has been obligated and/or expended to date, broken out by major categories such as detention, transportation, enforcement operations, personnel, technology, and security contracting.

• Determine how much of the $65 billion provided by H.R. 1 to CBP has been obligated and/or expended to date, including spending on personnel, facilities, surveillance systems, vehicles, and border infrastructure projects.

• Determine how much of the $12 billion provided by H.R. 1 to the Department of Homeland Security (in sections 90007 and 100051) has been obligated and/or expended to date.

• Determine the total amount of funds that ICE, CBP, and DHS have obligated and/or expended since January 2025 for expanded interior enforcement operations, including any funding sources in addition to the supplemental appropriations provided by H.R. 1.

• Identify future costs associated with sustaining the administration's expanded enforcement posture, including staffing, detention, transportation, and technology requirements.

• Provide any additional information CBO believes is necessary to understand the budgetary implications of these activities.

This request follows an earlier inquiry seeking a cost assessment of the Trump administration's National Guard deployments to American cities. CBO found that the administration's National Guard domestic deployments have cost taxpayers over half a billion dollars-information that Congress and the public had no access to until CBO's report. Congress and the American people deserve the same level of independent scrutiny for ICE, CBP, and DHS's use of the extraordinary funds provided by H.R. 1.

We request this analysis as soon as practicable. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

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