Washingtonconstructing the wall along the border. expanding the capability for detention. recruiting a thousand immigration officers.
Immigration and border enforcement would receive significant money injections totaling over $150 billion in the budget measure that the Senate barely adopted on Tuesday. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, if it passes, will solidify Trump’s immigration policies.
Politics
President Trump’s funding plan is cleared by the Senate with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
Under the proposed budget, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would get far more funding than its current annual detention budget of $3.4 billion, making it the federal government’s highest-funded law enforcement department. Additionally, it would make it simpler for local law enforcement to collaborate with federal immigration officials and charge for immigration services that were previously free or inexpensive.
The House, which approved its version of the 940-page Senate bill in May by a single vote of 215-214, will now review it. The two legislative versions now need to be reconciled by the two chambers.
The House and Senate versions’ immigration provisions are comparable and unaffected by the heated discussions surrounding other topics like taxes or Medicaid, even if the law is still being developed.
While some have longer or shorter timeframes, many of the funds would be accessible for four years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would raise the deficit by around $3.5 trillion over the following ten years if it were to become law.
The following are important aspects of immigration:
Border wall
Building access roads, erecting barrier sections, and installing barrier-related equipment like cameras, lights, and sensors are all included in this. The law makes no mention of certain places.
During his first term, Trump made repeated promises that Mexico would cover the cost of the wall. It didn’t.
Staffing
Trump has stated that he intends to add 3,000 Border Patrol personnel and 10,000 ICE agents.
Detention
Families may be held forever while awaiting a removal decision, according to the measure. The National Immigration Law Center’s vice president of policy, Heidi Altman, described it as a flagrant breach of the so-called Flores settlement agreement, which has been in effect since 1977 and caps the length of time children can be held in custody at 20 days.
Local assistance
You could consider that a present for [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott, Altman remarked.
Immigration fees
Although the statute permits yearly increases and, for many, forbids waivers based on financial necessity, the listed costs are minimums.
According to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the independent Migration Policy Institute, the contradiction of paying a fee for an employment authorization document is that it prevents you from working while requiring you to pay the price.
Altman pointed out that charging asylum seekers an annual fee for their pending applications penalizes them for something that is beyond their control—the U.S. government’s own backlog system.
Lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, are not eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) under other laws. Another clause states that children whose parents do not have a Social Security number are not eligible for the Child Tax Credit.
Praise and scorn
People can view the bill in two ways, according to Altman, whose organization has closely monitored the immigration-related aspects of the funding bill: either as a $150 billion infusion to boost what the Trump administration has already begun, or as a series of policy changes that will be difficult to reverse and subject an already corrupt system to even fewer safeguards, essentially targeting people’s most basic needs.
Bush-Joseph thought otherwise. She claimed that rather than radically altering the immigration system, the funding serves to strengthen an antiquated and rigid system.
Even if there aren’t many people coming right now, she explained, that’s why so much money is flowing to the border.
Money won’t make a big difference overnight, Bush-Joseph said. Opening correctional facilities and hiring staff take time. There will continue to be a significant backlog of cases for immigration courts. It’s also difficult to persuade other nations to accept additional deportees.
“You don’t get an agreement from El Salvador to take five more planes per week by arresting and detaining people with private contractors,” she said.
At a White House event on June 26, Trump called on Congress to swiftly approve the plan, claiming it would be the most significant piece of border legislation ever to reach the House floor.
“I’m all for hiring new people to help secure our borders, but we don’t need it to the extent that’s in this bill, especially when our border is largely contained,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the three senators who voted against the bill Tuesday, on X, calling it reckless expenditure.
Democrats from all sides of the political spectrum, notably California Senator Alex Padilla, have blasted the plan, claiming that the funding increases connected to immigration represent a significant shift in policy.
According to Padillas last month, you would assume that Republicans would use this reconciliation process as a chance to update our country’s immigration system, as they previously stated. However, they’re not.
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