STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Congressional Republicans approved $70 billion in funding for federal immigration enforcement last night.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The bill, now heading to President Trump's desk, will fully fund enforcement through the rest of his term. This money is in addition to tens of billions of dollars already approved last year.
INSKEEP: NPR homeland security correspondent Ximena Bustillo is following this. Ximena, good morning.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What's in the bill?
BUSTILLO: Republicans in Congress voted to send tens of billions of dollars to two agencies - Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. This includes $38 billion just for ICE, which is a bit over three times the previous annual budget Congress had approved. It also includes money to hire more Border Patrol agents and for border security technology. Congress was originally on track to fund these parts of DHS, along with many other parts of the federal government, through its normal appropriations process, but Senate Democrats pulled their support for that measure and for all of DHS funding after DHS agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
INSKEEP: OK. So that's very interesting. They ended up having to take this other path to fund DHS then. How does this measure differ from the earlier attempt?
BUSTILLO: Republicans passed this bill through a tool known as reconciliation. All you really need to know is that it's a way around the filibuster for the majority party in the Senate. But reconciliation is not a normal way to fund an agency. For starters, as an agency, you're supposed to get funding one fiscal year at a time, and ICE and Border Patrol get these dollars through 2029. And there's no provisions that say certain amounts need to be spent in a certain time frame. That means DHS could spend most of this as quickly or slowly as they want.
Immigration advocates warn that in regular appropriations bills that are often provisions that, for example, mandate DHS issue reports - whether to Congress or publicly - on how the money is spent, updates on the programs they fund and even details like the demographics of who is being detained, and none of those requirements are in this measure.
INSKEEP: Because Republicans went around the filibuster, did Democrats get anything in the end?
BUSTILLO: Not really. In April, Congress did pass a bill to fund all of DHS, except ICE and Border Patrol, and that bill did include more money for body cameras, stipulate congressional oversight of detention centers and a de-escalation training for officers and agents. But Democrats had been hoping to codify a mandate for officers to wear the body cameras, and they didn't get that. And they also didn't get any provision on the warrants officers must use to enter homes or limits on face coverings. Also lost in this fight was funding for internal oversight offices at DHS that investigate detention center conditions. Though, the April bill that I mentioned earlier, did include funding for the inspector general to take on some of that work.
INSKEEP: OK. So really only a few details change here. What does that mean overall for immigration enforcement?
BUSTILLO: I mean, it really is a historic investment in the president's immigration agenda. Officials at ICE have been waiting to see if this money is secure to spend it on technology like wearable headsets and contracts for datasets. And it's noted that this is on top of money provided last summer that kept both agencies functioning through this time. That money had already made ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement agency. So now there's going to be more resources and flexibilities for the agencies to expand their efforts to increase the rate of immigration arrests and deportations.
INSKEEP: NPR homeland security correspondent Ximena Bustillo. Thanks so much.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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