Stop Enabling ICE’s Dangerous Detention and Reckless Deportation Drive Oppose Additional Funding in the FY2026 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill
Congress is poised to further balloon the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) already bloated budget, expanding ICE’s sprawling detention apparatus at a time of record deaths in detention. The proposed spending bill would provide billions to private contractors already profiting from the windfall of funds DHS received last summer, including for private prisons, militarized immigration policing, and surveillance companies. Over the last year, we have seen the danger of aggressive immigration policing, leading to the detention of longtime residents, children, and even U.S. citizens. Passing this bill and giving DHS more money to detain our neighbors is dangerous and may lead to irreversible harm.
Congress reportedly is nearing an agreement to fund DHS for 44,500 immigration detention beds, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to abduct and deport more people at any given day than ever before. This number is up from 41,500 beds appropriated for FY24 and would be layered on top of the beds ICE is already spending on with the unprecedented $45 billion that Congress allocated as part of the 2025 reconciliation bill. This is especially alarming given reports that ICE is planning to erect new warehouse gulags for potentially over 80,000 people at a time. At Fort Bliss, the nation’s largest detention site, we have already seen people exposed to brutal conditions, including sexual abuse, overcrowding, and inadequate food; we expect these warehouses to similarly be sites of humanitarian catastrophe and immense suffering.
ICE is currently detaining a record breaking population of over 68,000 people with deadly consequences – six people died in ICE custody in December 2025 alone, during the deadliest year for people in detention in decades. Further, there is also nothing in this bill that prevents the administration from using this added funding to detain families, including young children, hundreds of whom have been detained for months in facilities without safe drinking water, medical care, education, or access to lawyers. This is a system that needs oversight, not another windfall in funds. Passing this bill would signal Congress’ consent to this dangerous and exploding network of detention sites at the very moment that our communities need their representatives to hold ICE accountable.
This critical funding fight comes as our communities are facing persistent militarized enforcement operations by masked agents, leading to the separation of hundreds of children from their parents and caregivers, and a nationwide, racial profiling operation ensnaring immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. This moment presents an opportunity for Congress to push back. Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Sen. Murray released a statement criticizing Senate Republicans for choosing to release a partisan bill to fund DHS and called for more accountability from President Trump’s “out-of-control DHS.” As the Appropriations Committees negotiate a bicameral conferenced version of the Homeland Security bill, we urge Congress to oppose any additional funds for ICE and use this bill to rein in the Trump administration’s reckless abuse and assault on our communities under the guise of immigration enforcement.
