Struggling DHS agencies plead with Congress for funding security

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

Department of Homeland Security agencies are requesting a total of $63 billion in fiscal year 2027 appropriations from Congress – even as Congress continues to withhold DHS funding for the current fiscal year.

The Homeland Security bill is the only fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill to remain unpassed. As of Thursday, DHS has remained shut down for over 61 days, yet U.S. lawmakers are still squabbling over the details of how to fund the department.

Given Senate Democrats’ refusal to pass any Homeland Security funding bill that fails to restrict ICE and Border Patrol operations, Senate Republicans finally passed an appropriations bill stripped of immigration enforcement funding and sent it to the House.

House Republicans, however, are waiting to approve that bill and reopen DHS until Senate Republicans move forward with a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that addresses annual ICE and CBP funding.

In the meantime, the House Appropriations Committee is already considering next fiscal year’s DHS funding, meeting Thursday with agency heads to discuss their annual budgetary needs.

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal requests $10 billion for ICE and $18.5 billion for CBP. Officials from those agencies not only reiterated those requests but also urged lawmakers to reopen DHS as soon as possible.

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told the committee that immigration detention and removal operations have continued under the current funding lapse due to an extra cash boost from Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” last year.

But to “assert that ICE is somehow unimpeded by the lapse in annual appropriations,” Lyons said, is “categorically false,” since the agency “cannot rely solely on the funding [the OBBB] provides.”

“The law provides resources for specific programs and activities — namely, to surge or expand ICE’s detention and removal operations. However, this is just one aspect of ICE’s mission and programs,” Lyons wrote in his prepared statement.

“The impacts of the ongoing failure to fund ICE through the appropriations process have been dire, as numerous ICE personnel and operations have gone unfunded, including much of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations.”

Lyon added that ICE also hasn’t been able to pay its contractors due to the shutdown.

While committee Republicans praised the agencies for successfully reducing border encounters by 96% since the Biden administration, most Democrats took a harsher tone.

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-N.C., told Lyons and CBP Acting Director Rodney Scott that “your agencies are out of control” and “display patterns of reckless, incompetent, cruel, illegal, corrupt, and unconstitutional behavior.”

Underwood pointed to the 44 migrant deaths that have occurred in ICE detention centers since the second Trump administration began, as well as the deaths of two American citizens involving immigration enforcement officers during the Minneapolis protests.

“In my opinion these are leadership problems, not funding problems,” Underwood said. “Why would we appropriate more funding[?] …Now you’re here with your hand out, asking the American taxpayers for even more money. Enough is enough.”

Democrats took a softer stance toward the remaining major DHS agency directors – including TSA, FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and CISA – that testified before the committee Thursday afternoon.

Those agencies have felt the brunt of the shutdown’s impacts, having received no extra funding in advance like ICE and CBP did.

TSA Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers that the current funding lapse and the full government shutdown Democrats triggered last October together resulted in nearly $1 billion in delayed paychecks to TSA employees.

“Due to our national security mission, 95% of our workforce was required to work without pay during the multiple shutdowns, causing great strain and financial hardship,” McNeill said.

“Paying these dedicated employees for the work they perform should never again be a point of debate,” she added pointedly.

TSA is requesting $11.7 billion for fiscal year 2027, while FEMA is requesting $38.5 billion and CISA is requesting $2.5 billion. The Coast Guard and the Secret Service are requesting $12.5 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively.