Congress

Trump got $170 billion for immigration. Now he has to enact it.

Published

1 year ago

July 5, 2025

President Donald Trump’s megabill with $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement squeaked through Congress after days of promises, arm twisting and implicit threats to wavering members.

Now — the clock is ticking to spend the money.

The Trump administration has three-and-a-half years to drastically expand the nation’s border enforcement and deportation infrastructure, a massive logistical challenge for which there is no easy comparison. It must hire and train thousands of new immigration officials, secure contracts to ramp up detention capacity and expand the immigration court system. All of that is in pursuit of an ambitious White House target: 1 million annual deportations.

The megabill, which the president signed into law Friday, offers an unprecedented infusion of cash into the country’s immigration enforcement apparatus, but even Trump border czar Tom Homan acknowledges the administration has a great deal of work ahead, especially when it comes to fulfilling Trump’s pledge to hire 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“Look, this isn’t easy. Ten thousand ICE officers? Never happened before,” Homan told Blue Light News on Friday. “But I’ll say this: It’s about time … with more money, we can do more.”

Homan is confident the money will be spent by the end of Trump’s term, but couldn’t predict how long it will take for the administration to hit 1 million annual removals. He is already working with ICE to assess how many new agents the agency can hire over the next three months, and how quickly the administration can bring on new detention beds.

The Trump administration’s ability to expeditiously spend the billions it demanded is likely to prove decisive in its effort to increase deportations, a key campaign pledge and a line the administration will likely want to tout ahead of the midterms.

With the new money, the Trump administration will focus on constructing more of the border wall and barriers, while beefing up technology that will allow agents to communicate with each other in cellular and radio dead zones, Homan said.

The administration will also move quickly to grow detention capacity, working with contractors to bring vacant prisons and facilities back online and build up soft-sided facilities like Florida did with “Alligator Alcatraz.”

ICE has been “on a constant chase, trying to move flights out as quickly as possible just to make room for the arrests they’re making — they’re averaging 1,500 to 2,000 a day,” Homan said. “Teams are coming home before the end of a shift because of lack of beds — not a lot, but it’s happened a few times. So the beds are going to get us more capability for detention. That’s the big thing.”

The administration has also been fielding contractor pitches on technology and other solutions to improve its targeting efforts — finding undocumented immigrants inside the country. Homan said the administration will also work with contractors to ramp up transportation and removal flights, while also potentially using them to fill jobs that don’t require a badge or a gun.

John Sandweg, acting ICE director from 2013 to 2014, highlighted the difficulty of hiring that many people that fast for complicated jobs. Significantly expanding ICE’s footprint includes recruiting, vetting, onboarding and training thousands of new officers and will require building out the agency’s human resources department, training centers, office space and resources — from vehicles to weapons.

“That is way harder than it sounds,” Sandweg said. “And this is a second term — they have three and a half years left.”

Past presidents, including Joe Biden, have secured billions from Congress, only to learn that “shovel ready” projects are hard to come by. The Biden administration rushed to get funds out the door before Trump took office, and the current administration has tried to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in grants — only to be stymied by the courts.

Sandweg estimated deploying 10,000 new officers would take at least three years, and if the administration wants to get this done before Trump’s term ends, “you’re going to have to really push it to the limits in order to get them operational in this administration.”

That has him concerned that vetting standards could be lowered for speed, he said. The rapid build-up of Customs and Border Patrol under former President George W. Bush raised questions about that administration’s hiring standards at the time, which resulted in widespread misconduct at the agency that carried into the Obama administration.

And as illegal border crossings decline, ICE must look within the country to reach its arrest quota — a goal of 3,000 daily apprehensions in recent weeks. But an increase in arrests in the months ahead doesn’t automatically result in more deportations, as it will take time for the administration to build out a “logistical pipeline all over the country,” said Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy secretary of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term.

“It’s a whole lot of little contracts with state and local officials. It’s building more facilities. It’s reopening the ones they already have. And all you need is one choke point in the logistics — every convoy is as fast as the slowest ship,” Cuccinelli said. “You’ve got to have the planes, the vehicles, the manpower, the security, in all the right places.”

The domestic policy bill also includes over $1 billion for the immigration court system to hire more judges and staff, but it’s unclear how quickly the administration can build out the courts, and whether it can move at a rate that can keep up with an increased pace of ICE arrests — or if the effort will ultimately result in longer detention time.

The Trump administration’s efforts to work around the immigration courts have been met with legal challenges. And the case backlog is substantial: roughly 700 immigration judges are coping with a 3.5 million case pile-up.

The funding for immigration judges is “important as well, because the system is backlogged,” said Michael Hough, director of federal relations at NumbersUSA, a group that works to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. “Just because you detain these people, especially people who have been here for a while, they need hearings — you’ve got to get them in front of an immigration judge.”

While the White House celebrates the bill’s passage, political pressure is already growing for congressional Republicans to enact new policy. Immigration hawks say the money is crucial, but the party also has to look to legislation that will make permanent changes to the immigration system — such as reviving talks around border security and asylum law from the party’s legislation from last year, known as H.R.2.

“There are other legislative changes that Republicans campaigned on, and that we’re going to continue to be looking to them to move things forward and not just sit on their hands now that they’ve passed the Big Beautiful Bill Act,” said a person close to the Trump administration, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “No, this is a budget reconciliation bill … it’s infused a ton of money into this effort, but there’s still some policy changes that the administration has talked about and wants to pursue.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Republicans brace for Trump’s wrath

Published

23 hours ago

August 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump has held his fire since senators skipped town for five weeks without advancing his elections security bill. Some Republicans don’t expect that to last.

Senators punted until at least September any vote on a framework for a third party-line spending bill that includes parts of the SAVE America Act, rather than hold a failed vote.

Whether Trump accepts that explanation is entirely unclear.

Some Republicans privately are prepared for the mercurial president’s yearslong obsession with the election measure to resurface over the recess and risk further inflaming the party’s base just months before GOP senators need those same voters to turn out.

“That would be consistent with his approach,” Sen. Mike Rounds said about the possibility. But “we also know the votes aren’t there,” he added.

Senate conservatives tried different ways to appease the president before leaving.

Budget Chair Ron Johnson said they spoke directly with Trump before pulling the plug on any vote as they struggled to corral support to advance a budget resolution. Johnson said Trump blessed delaying the vote to September.

And Majority Leader John Thune called up a vote on a simpler voter ID bill that unifies the GOP conference, rather than the more complex SAVE America Act that includes provisions restricting mail-in voting, for example, that some in the party don’t support.

Still, some Republicans don’t believe it’ll be enough to satisfy Trump given his relentless focus on nixing the filibuster and passing the election bill, a hardball strategy that there also isn’t sufficient support for within the conference.

One GOP senator, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said Thune wanted to hold a vote on the voter ID bill because “he thinks it will give us cover with the president.”

“I think he’s wrong,” the senator added.

Asked if he thought the voter ID bill vote would satisfy Trump, Thune said in an interview “good question, but I think if they want votes, we’ll try and get votes, but I can’t guarantee outcomes.”

Sen. Mike Lee and other conservatives continue trying to twist the conference’s arm, vowing to “keep fighting” for the GOP bill and to renew the effort once the chamber returns.

But Trump and his allies’ continued focus on legislation that doesn’t have the votes to pass has frustrated many Republicans, who worry that strategy is sowing division rather than uniting the party against Democrats that they need to defeat.

“I hear what the administration is saying,” Sen. Thom Tills said. “I look at political data almost every day of the week. …I don’t see [the SAVE America Act] as one of the major factors that are going to get out to the polls.”

What else we’re watching:

— HOURS LEFT FOR MILLER DROP-OUT WATCH: Rep. Max Miller has less than 12 hours to drop out of his race and let Ohio party leaders replace his name on the November ballot. So far, Miller is signaling that’s not going to happen. The Ohio Republican has until 4 p.m. Monday to drop out of his race for reelection in the Cleveland suburb district. But Miller has remained defiant amid allegations of domestic abuse from Emily Moreno, his ex-wife and the daughter of Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno.

— HEGSETH FAILS TO WIN GOP BUDGET SUPPORT — Senators began their break no closer to enacting the crown jewel of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s agenda: a record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense budget. Hegseth hasn’t persuaded Republicans to steamroll Democrats and advance the money in a party-line plan, despite regularly trekking to Blue Light News and hobnobbing with lawmakers. Instead, an increasingly vocal group of GOP lawmakers argue the administration hasn’t explained why Republicans should burn valuable political capital in pursuit of Trump’s vision — especially with the midterms just months away.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Connor O’Brien and Mark Satter contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate confirms Blanche as attorney general

Published

3 days ago

August 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Saturday confirmed Todd Blanche to be attorney general, following a weeks-long struggle with a handful of wary Republicans.

The Senate voted 50-49 to approve him, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining with Democrats in opposition.

Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi’s ouster in April. Questions about Blanche’s potential conflicts of interest from representing Trump, as well as his role in the creation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of Trump’s settlement this spring with the IRS, created headwinds to his confirmation among a key group of Senate Republicans.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who lost re-election after Trump endorsed a primary challenger, helped Blanche clinch his 50th vote Friday. He said Blanche wasn’t perfect but that he wasn’t sure Trump would pick someone better to lead the Justice Department.

“The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”

Cassidy’s support came after Blanche had already spent weeks negotiating with Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who vetted his nomination as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cornyn struck an agreement with Blanche Sunday for the DOJ to curtail the payout fund and rein in a deal to exempt Trump from IRS audits.

Cassidy’s support came hours after Murkowski announced that she would oppose Blanche’s nomination, putting it on the brink of potential failure. Between unified opposition from Democrats and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence for health reasons, Blanche could only lose two Republicans and still be confirmed.

Hours before Friday’s vote, Murkowski told reporters she spoke with Blanche multiple times but that she was “good with where I am.” She said there was no “one” thing that motivated her decision.

“If there was one thing, we might be able to go back to the White House and say ‘Hey, can we work on this one thing,’” she said. “But for me it was a compilation.”

She added that she believed the anti-weaponization fund is “pretty dead” but “what is not so clear” are the audit immunity provisions of Trump’s IRS agreement, “which I just think are viewed by so many in this country as kind of a special and sweet deal for the president and his family.”

Congress

Senate passes funding bill to avert October shutdown

Published

3 days ago

August 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate passed a bill Saturday to fund the government beyond the midterm elections, putting the onus back on the House to head off a shutdown looming Oct. 1.

The Senate approved the measure in a bipartisan 90-6 vote, with Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina voting present. The bill would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions. Senate leaders sped up consideration of the legislation as part of an agreement reached Saturday morning to allow members to leave for August recess.

The House and Senate have now each passed different bills aimed at averting a shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. The House bill would fund the government through Dec. 4.

The Senate legislation sets up a year-end standoff over the Trump administration’s controversial plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants. The bill would block the administration from finalizing that rule during the length of the stopgap — and lawmakers are already expecting a December brawl over the issue.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said this week that he’s going to “fight like hell” in December to ensure Congress doesn’t further obstruct the grant overhaul.

But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are resistant to the White House approach to grants. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she will “continue to oppose” the Trump administration plans “because I think they politicize the grants process, and I don’t want that to occur.” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on Senate Appropriations, said she too would “welcome the fight.”

The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) intended to ensure that a ban on intoxicating hemp products kicks in come November, after Senate leaders at the White House’s urging included language in the funding bill to delay it.

The Senate bill includes language Democrats sought to ensure Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol don’t get any new funding under the patch. Republicans enacted $70 billion for those agencies along party lines earlier this year.

That prohibition could be contentious in the House.

Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) said in an interview that the provision “could be a dealbreaker” and that he’s “not a fan” of the Senate version. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said Tuesday that he would say he’s undecided if GOP leadership whipped his vote on the Senate stopgap.

“I do not like the Senate language,” Van Drew said, noting the grant approval provision. “It’s one I would want to know what the president thinks.”

The White House issued a statement of administration policy in support of the Senate’s funding bill. No such memo was issued for the House bill, which did not include the funding increases and authorizations the White House requested.

“Every Member of Congress should support passage of this [continuing resolution] to keep the Government open as discussions on full year appropriations continue,” it reads.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, praised the Senate measure for including the grant and immigration enforcement language.

“This bill is a clear improvement over the House Republican continuing resolution, but we are still nearly two months away from the end of the fiscal year and should be working together to pass full-year funding bills,” she said in a statement.

Mia McCarthy and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.