Trump admin shrugs off Congressional concerns over ICE spending
The showdown over one of President Donald Trump's signature priorities is the latest fight between the two branches over who has the power of the purse. It comes as the administration is pressuring lawmakers to pass a megabill that would add billions in funding for border security — with appropriators quietly urging Trump officials to slow down and not act based on the hype of potential legislation of which passage is not guaranteed.
And even as lawmakers publicly and privately plead for the administration to stick within its budget, top White House officials, including senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, have instead intensified efforts to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.
'You think that Stephen Miller is going to accept, 'sorry Stephen, I'm just waiting on my annual appropriation, I'll get back to you?'' said an administration official, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. 'That's not a response you give him.'
Trump's top aides are pressing ICE for higher arrest numbers, with Miller calling for at least 3,000 apprehensions a day — double what the agency was tasked with during Trump's first month in office. Acting ICE director Todd Lyons said the agency is currently averaging 1,600.
Concerns on Capitol Hill spilled into the open during a hearing last month. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) chair of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing resources to the Department of Homeland Security, said his office lacked the information it needed to ensure the agency was spending funds approved by Congress. The administration, he said, could be risking a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which bars federal agencies from using resources before Congress has greenlit the spending.
'I would appreciate it if you, for your part, would let folks know up your chain of command that this information, if it's not coming in real time, is not useful,' Amodei told Lyons, who was on hand to testify. '[We] have to keep in mind things like the Antideficiency Act … and I'll just be honest with you, speaking for me, I don't know that I have the information that I need to make sure that we're doing our job in the context of that.'
Republicans widely support spending on border enforcement, detainment and deportations. They are also expected to back the White House's request to Congress to claw back Congressionally appropriated funding, even if it could pose a political liability for some moderate GOP lawmakers. But the administration's brazen tactics are poised to test whether Hill Republicans can stomach losing even more of their power over federal government operations.
'It's not just the Democrats saying they'll throw a wrench in this,' the administration official said. 'It's the Republicans, too, questioning why we're spending beyond our means.'
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Republican appropriator from Florida, said getting information about the administration's spending has been 'an issue writ large' and that there have been some 'growing pains' given how quickly the president has moved to enact new policy.
'Things are happening really fast, and we're not always getting the information on a timely basis,' he said in an interview, while declining to comment on concerns about DHS' spending specifically.
When asked about the tensions between Congress and the White House, administration officials told POLITICO that Senate Republicans must advance the House-passed tax and spending package so the agency can hire more Border Patrol and ICE agents, and fund border wall construction and new technology. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in a statement, said 'with the 'most secure border in American history,' the administration 'can't let up now.'
The White House echoed DHS and said Trump is 'keeping his promises to secure the Southern Border and deport illegal aliens.'
'All of the tremendous success we're already seeing in such a short time can be locked in and made permanent with final passage of The One, Big, Beautiful Bill — it will provide the funding needed to deport the millions of illegals who entered under Joe Biden and permanently secure the border,' said spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
Democrats are unsurprisingly more blunt in their criticism of what they see as an administration running roughshod over Congress. 'They are spending beyond their means,' said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in an interview. 'They are going to run out of money two months prior to the end of the fiscal year.'
Despite Congressional concerns, the White House is signaling its impatience with even the current progress. ICE last week underwent another leadership shake-up, underscoring the administration's frustrations with the arrest and deportation numbers. Robert Hammer, the acting head of Homeland Security Investigations, was reassigned after just four months in the role, and Kenneth Genalo, who was acting chief of enforcement and removal operations, announced he was retiring.
And while ICE's importance to the Trump agenda is unparalleled, the administration's insistence that it can control what it spends is not. Proposals from the Office of Management and Budget suggest that some agencies have been directed to execute the White House's fiscal 2026 budget request now — as opposed to adhering to the current enacted funding levels.
A proposal from the White House budget office, obtained by POLITICO's E&E News, directs the Commerce Department to align its 2025 spending with the plan that it lays out for the following year. The OMB proposal for NASA also contains language that states the directive to begin 2026 plans explicitly, according to two people familiar with NASA's budget.
If the administration continues to press the potential limits of its funding power, it could set up a looming confrontation with Republican appropriators. Rep. David Joyce, an Ohio Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, said it would be an issue if the administration was playing around with funds Congress had not yet approved.
'If you're taking money that, from other pockets, and then going to backfill it when you get your allocation, that's a problem,' he said.
Chelsea Harvey and Sam Skove contributed to this report.
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