Washington – Build a border wall. Improve detention capacity. Hire thousands of immigration agents.
The budget bill approved by the Senate on Tuesday includes substantial capital inputs (about $150 billion) to immigration and border enforcement. If it passes, “a large bill bill” will consolidate Trump’s difficult legacy in immigration.
The Budget Act would make immigration and customs law enforcement the highest federal government funding law enforcement agency, surpassing the current $3.4 billion detention budget. It will also charge fees for immigration services that were once free or cheaper and make it easier for local law enforcement to work with federal authorities to immigrate.
The 940-page Senate bill will now return to the House, which passed the version in May, also passed by 215-214 votes. Now, two chambers must reconcile two versions of the bill.
Although legislation continues to evolve, immigration rules in the House and Senate versions are similar and are not subject to intense debate on other issues, such as Medicaid or taxation.
Many funds can last four years, although some timelines are longer or shorter. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if enacted, the bill will increase its deficit by nearly $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
Here are the key elements about immigration:
Border wall
- $46.5 billion is used to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border wall and ban immigrant smugglers at sea.
This includes the construction and installation of barrier sections, building access, and barrier-related technologies such as cameras, lighting and sensors. The legislation does not refer to specific locations.
Trump has repeatedly vowed during his first term that Mexico would pay for the wall. No.
Staffing
- $32 billion in immigration enforcement, including staffing on ice and expanding the so-called 287(g) agreement, in which state and local law enforcement agencies work with federal authorities to deport immigrants.
- $7 billion is used to recruit border patrol agents, customs officials at inbound ports, aviation and marine agents, and field support personnel; retain bonuses; and vehicles.
- $3.3 billion to hire immigration judges and support staff and other regulations.
Trump said he wanted to hire 10,000 icefield agents and 3,000 Border Patrol agents.
detention
- $45 billion is spent on building and operating immigration detention centers and transporting deported people.
- $5 billion in new customs and border protection facilities and improvements to existing facilities and checkpoints. It is unclear how this affects California or the famous Border Patrol checkpoint, located on Interstate 5 near St. Onofre.
The bill allows families to be detained indefinitely for dismissal decisions. Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said the flagrant violation of the so-called Flores settlement, which has been signed since 1977 and limits the time it takes for children to be legally detained for 20 days.
Local assistance
- $13.5 billion to repay state and local governments’ immigration-related expenses. These are divided into two cans of funds: the National Border Security Strengthening Fund and the Immigration-related deficit experienced nationwide, or the $10 billion of the Biden Fund’s National Border Security Strengthening Fund. Both will fund local law enforcement to arrest immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and committed crimes.
Ultraman said: “You can think of it as a gift.” [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott. ”
Immigration Fees
- The $1,000 fee outlined in the House bill is at least $100. Applicants will also pay $100 per year for an application pending. This is unprecedented – never levied on immigrants who fled persecution.
- At least $550 ($275 renewal) for employment authorization for people with asylum applications, humanitarian parole and temporary protection status. Currently, asylum seekers are not required to pay, and others are charged $470.
- At least $500 is used for temporary protection status, up to $80, including biometric technology.
The fees stated are the minimum – the bill allows for annual increase and for many people, exemptions based on financial needs are prohibited.
“The cost paradox of employment authorization documents is that you don’t allow work, but you need to pay for it,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Institute for Nonpartisan Immigration Policy.
Ultraman pointed out that collecting annual fees for asylum seekers for applications will punish the U.S. government itself for more than or less applicants controlled by those who are controlled by more than or less.
Others exclude legal immigrants, such as refugees and refugee immigrants, including benefits such as Medicare, Medicaid and Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Another provision excludes children from the child tax credit if their parents lack a social security number.
Praise and contempt
Altman, whose organization has closely tracked the immigration aspects of the foundation bill, said people can look at the bill two ways: big picture — as a $150-billion infusion to supercharge what the Trump administration has already started — or surprisingly, as a series of policy changes that will not be easy to undo “and make an already corrupt system subject to even fewer safeguards and really go after people’s most basic needs.”
Bush-Joseph has a different view. The funding strengthened an outdated and rigid immigration system without fundamentally changing it, she said.
“That’s why even if there aren’t many people coming to the border right now, all that money is going to go to the border,” she said.
Bush Joseph said money alone wouldn’t change things overnight. It takes time to hire and open a detention center. Immigration judges will still have a large backlog of cases. And getting foreign countries to agree to accept more people being expelled is tricky.
“Arson and detaining private contractors does not allow you to reach an agreement from El Salvador to take five more planes a week,” she said.
At a White House event on June 26, Trump urged Congress to quickly pass the bill, saying it was “will be the most important border legislation ever.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-ky.) was one of three senators who voted against the bill on Tuesday, calling it a “recky spending,” he wrote on X: “I’m all about hiring new people to help secure our borders, but we don’t need this bill, especially when our borders are mostly contained within our borders.”
Throughout the political aisle, Democrats, including California Senator Alex Padilla, slammed the bill, saying funds related to immigration have increased a lot of policy changes.
“You might think that maybe it’s only a moment, Republicans will use this reconciliation process as an opportunity for them to do what they said before and modernize our country’s immigration system,” Padilla said last month. “But they are not.”
