After a Democrat standoff, Trump signs $70bn immigration enforcement bill

Published 10 June 2026 · politics

Immigrant advocates warn the bill offers few guardrails, though it boosts funds for ICE and CBP amid Trump’s deportation campaign. United States President Donald Trump

Immigrant advocates warn the bill offers few guardrails, though it boosts funds for ICE and CBP amid Trump’s deportation campaign. United States President Donald Trump has signed into law a $70bn funding bill for immigration enforcement, capping a months-long standoff with Democrats after the killing of two US citizens. The legislation signed into law on Wednesday provides funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for at least the remainder of Trump’s term. That adds to a $140bn financial windfall the agencies received as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a ta and-spending bill Congress passed last July. Both ICE and CBP fall under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In an Oval Office signing ceremony, Trump accused the Democrats of nefarious motives for seeking to block DHS funding. “Congressional Democrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America,” Trump said. “They want to drag us straight back to chaos and crime.” Immigration had dominated Trump’s re-election campaign, and the Republican leader returned to office for a second term on a pledge to undertake a mass deportation campaign.

Despite initially saying his administration would only target criminal offenders, the strategy quickly expanded to target individuals without criminal records. Immigration advocates have accused the administration of using “dragnet” techniques to boost detention numbers, while rolling back legal protections for foreign nationals to increase the deportable population. The first nine months of Trump’s second term saw an 11-fold increase in ICE street arrests, compared with the final months of President Joe Biden’s presidency, according to the Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group. That included a seven-fold increase in people arrested who had no prior criminal convictions. Rights groups have accused ICE and CBP of using racial profiling, excessive violence and unconstitutional tactics to boost detentions. Those tactics include warrantless house searches and barring immigrants from using their due process rights. The Trump administration, however, has rejected those claims. Political standoff Despite the criticism, Democratic leadership initially supported the $70bn funding bill, which is set to allow both ICE and CBP to further grow their ranks. But the party changed course following the killings of two US citizens in January: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.