ICE's Budget Nearly Tripled in a Year. Here's What Changed on the Ground.

The budget increase is genuinely without precedent

ICE's funding tripled in the span of about a year. Congress appropriated roughly $10 billion for ICE in early FY2025, then added $75 billion more over four years, approximately $18.7 billion annually, through the July 2025 budget reconciliation law (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act). Combined, ICE had $28.7 billion available in FY2025-26, nearly triple its entire FY2024 budget, according to Brennan Center analysis. Two-thirds of that new funding, $45 billion over four years, is earmarked specifically for detention capacity.

The annual detention budget increase alone, $11.25 billion, is described by the Brennan Center as a 400% jump from the prior year, and actually exceeds the entire federal Bureau of Prisons budget request for FY2026, despite the federal prison system holding roughly 155,000 people, more than double ICE's current detained population.

Detention and deportation numbers have risen sharply, and continue rising

The number of people in ICE detention rose approximately 74% since January 2025, reaching over 68,000 by February 2026. Through the first six months of FY2026 (October 2025 through early April 2026), ICE carried out 234,236 removals, compared to 134,500 in the same period of FY2025 and 133,803 in FY2024, roughly a 74% increase over either prior year's equivalent period.

The agency's stated goal is 1 million deportations for the coming fiscal year, and ICE Air Operations conducted over 2,250 removal flights to 79 countries between January 2025 and January 2026, a 46% increase over the prior year, including first-time deportation flights to 25 countries not previously served.

A brief, real shift followed a controversial enforcement incident

Data compiled by researcher Austin Kocher shows a 21% drop specifically in detentions of people with no criminal history following a widely reported ICE enforcement operation in Minneapolis in which agents shot and killed two civilians. This produced what the data shows as a measurable, though likely temporary, shift in enforcement patterns, since the administration has announced no formal policy change and there's no clear indication the shift will persist.

Separately, ICE's own reported data shows 47 deaths in ICE custody since the start of the current administration in January 2025, with 16 of those in 2026 alone, a rate of approximately one death every 6.3 days during that period.

Who is actually being detained and deported

• Of FY2025's roughly 442,000 deportations, approximately 167,000 people (about 38%) had criminal convictions or pending charges; the remainder did not, based on Axios reporting of ICE's own data
• People with no criminal record beyond an immigration violation have consistently made up the largest single share of ICE's detained population, according to ICE's own published statistics
• Mexico receives the largest share of deportees, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Colombia; together these five countries account for the large majority of all removals
• Detained individuals can request release on bond, with a statutory minimum set at $1,500, determined by an immigration judge

The core disagreement

Enforcement-focused advocates generally argue the funding surge and resulting detention/deportation increases reflect voters' clear 2024 mandate for stricter immigration enforcement, and that removing people without legal status, regardless of individual criminal history, is a legitimate application of existing immigration law. Critics generally point to the scale of the funding increase relative to due process infrastructure, since the same reconciliation law significantly expanded detention and removal capacity while not proportionally expanding immigration judges needed to fairly adjudicate cases, alongside the in-custody death rate and the Minneapolis incident, as evidence the enforcement expansion is outpacing the systems needed to ensure it operates fairly and safely. The Brennan Center's specific concern, that private-contractor-operated detention facilities create durable financial and political incentives that could outlast any single administration's policy, represents a structural critique distinct from the immediate policy debate over enforcement levels themselves.