WASHINGTON (AP) — A ballooning Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget. Hiring bonuses of $50,000. Swelling ranks of ICE officers, to 22,000, in an expanding national force bigger than most police departments in America.
promised the in U.S. history, but achieving his goal wouldn't have been possible without funding from passed by Republicans in Congress, and it's fueling unprecedented in cities like and beyond.
The GOP’s big bill is “supercharging ICE,” one budget expert said, in ways that Americans may not fully realize — and that have only just begun.
“I just don’t think people have a sense of the scale,” said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress and a former adviser to the Biden administration's Office of Management and Budget.
"We’re looking at ICE in a way we’ve never seen before,” he said.
Trump's big bill creates massive law enforcement force
As the Republican president marks , the immigration enforcement and removal operation that has been a cornerstone of his domestic and foreign policy agenda is rapidly transforming into something else — a national law enforcement presence with in new spending from U.S. taxpayers.
The shooting death of in Minneapolis showed the alarming reach of the new federalized force, sparking against the military-styled officers seen going door to door to find and detain immigrants. Amid the , Trump revived threats to to quell the demonstrations and .
But Trump’s own public approval rating on immigration, one of his signature issues, has slipped since he took office, according to .
“Public sentiment is everything," said Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., at a press conference at the Capitol with lawmakers supporting legislation to impeach .
Americans, she said, are upset at what they are seeing. “They didn’t sign on for this,” she said.
Border crossings down, but Americans confront new ICE enforcements
To be sure, illegal crossings into the U.S. at the Mexico border have fallen to historic lows under Trump, a remarkable shift from just a few years ago when President Joe Biden's Democratic administration allowed millions of people to temporarily enter the U.S. as they adjudicated their claims to stay.
Yet as enforcement moves away from the border, the newly hired army of immigration officers swarming city streets with aggressive tactics — in , — is something not normally seen in the U.S.
Armed and masked law enforcement officers are being witnessed smashing car windows, yanking people from vehicles and chasing and wrestling others to the ground and hauling them away — images playing out in endless loops on TVs and other screens.
And it’s not just ICE. A long list of supporting agencies, including federal, state and local police and sheriff’s offices, are entering into contract partnerships with Homeland Security to conduct immigration enforcement operations in communities around the nation.
, R-La., has warned Democrats that this is "no time to be playing games” by stirring up the opposition to immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis and other places.
“They need to get out of the way and allow federal law enforcement to do its duty," Johnson said at the Capitol.
Noem has said the immigration enforcement officers are . The department insists it's targeting criminals in the actions, what officials call the worst of the worst immigrants.
However, reports show that non-criminals and U.S. citizens are also being forcibly detained by immigration officers. The Supreme Court last year on using race alone in the immigration stops.
Trump last month comments that to immigrants from certain countries.
The Trump administration has set a goal of 100,000 detentions a day, about three times what's typical, with 1 million deportations a year.
Money from the big bill flows with few restraints
With Republican control of Congress, the impeachment of Noem or any other Trump official is not a viable political option for Democrats, who would not appear to have the vote tally even among their own ranks.
In fact, even if Congress wanted to curtail Trump’s immigration operations — by threatening to shut down the government, for example — it would be difficult to stop the spend.
What Trump called the “big, beautiful bill” is essentially on autopilot through 2029, the year he's scheduled to finish his term and leave office.
The legislation essentially doubled annual Homeland Security funding, adding $170 billion to be used over four years. Of that, ICE, which typically receives about $10 billion a year, was provided $30 billion for operations and $45 billion for detention facilities.
“The first thing that comes to mind is spending on this level is typically done on the military,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “Trump is militarizing immigration enforcement.”
Ahead, Congress will consider a routine annual funding package for Homeland Security unveiled Tuesday, or risk a partial shutdown Jan. 30. A growing group of Democratic senators and the Congressional Progressive Caucus have had enough. They say they won't support additional funds without significant changes.
Lawmakers are on ICE operations, including limiting arrests around hospitals, courthouses, churches and other sensitive locations and ensuring that officers display proper identification and refrain from wearing face masks.
“I think ICE needs to be totally torn down,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., on CNN over the weekend.
“People want immigration enforcement that goes after criminals,” he said. And not what he called this “goon squad.”
Big spending underway, but Trump falls short of goals
Meanwhile, Homeland Security has begun at its disposal. The department informed Congress it has obligated roughly $58 billion — most of that, some $37 billion, for border wall construction, according to a person familiar with the private assessment but unauthorized to discuss it.
The Department of Homeland Security said its massive recruitment campaign blew past its 10,000-person target to bring in 12,000 new hires, more than doubling the force to 22,000 officers, in a matter of months.
“The good news is that thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a December statement.
The department also announced it had arrested and deported about 600,000 people. It also said 1.9 million other people had “voluntarily self-deported" since January 2025, when Trump took office.
