WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025, authorizing $75 billion in new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The signing ceremony took place during a Fourth of July celebration at the White House South Portico.

Congressional Republicans passed the legislation through the budget reconciliation process without the support of Democrats. Trump described the law as "the biggest bill of its type in history." The reconciliation process was also used in 2021 to approve billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funding.

The $75 billion represented a substantial increase for ICE, which typically receives about $10 billion in annual funding. The additional money made ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency. Customs and Border Protection also received tens of billions of dollars in additional funding under the law. Congressional Republicans attached few restrictions to ICE's share of the funding; Congress typically attaches specific spending guidelines to agency appropriations.

ICE used the money to hire thousands of new agents, expand detention capacity by increasing detention center beds, and purchase warehouses to house additional detainees. The agency relied more on limited or no-bid contracts to scale up capacity. CoreCivic and the Geo Group, two private prison companies, spent millions of dollars on lobbying in 2025 in support of the legislation.

The funding also played a role during a Department of Homeland Security shutdown that lasted 59 days — the longest in the department's history. DHS agencies operated without regular annual appropriations for two months during the shutdown, and airport security employees worked without pay for weeks. Most ICE and Border Patrol operations, however, continued largely unimpaired because of the additional funding provided by the act. Trump signed an executive order to pay DHS workers during the shutdown.

Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem used part of the funding to purchase two luxury jets and awarded a multimillion-dollar advertising contract to a firm with ties to her and her top aides. Her successor, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, rolled back some of Noem's spending policies. A DHS spokesperson said, "DHS is still subject to congressional oversight," and added, "The 'misconduct' that needs to be corrected is the Democrats' longest government shutdown in U.S. history."