Grassley Just Handed ICE $38 Billion. Here's the Fine Print.
Senate Judiciary Committee language would fund migrant mass removal machine through 2029.
WASHINGTON — The paper is out. Now comes the reckoning.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released the legislative text of his committee’s title of the Republican reconciliation bill Monday night — a document that would funnel nearly $39.2 billion toward immigration enforcement, lock in ICE and CBP funding through the end of the Trump presidency, and erect a new wall of fees designed to price migrants out of every legal pathway available to them.
Combined with a separate $32.5 billion from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the total package comes to roughly $69.2 billion — with ICE alone set to receive approximately $38.2 billion.
The Judiciary title would cover ICE hiring and training, transportation, information technology, and funding for so-called 287(g) agreements — the program that deputizes local police departments to carry out federal immigration enforcement.
An additional $750 million would go to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, with $3.32 billion directed to the Department of Justice and $5 billion to the Bureau of Prisons — at least $3 billion of which is earmarked for hiring and training new BOP employees.
There are no offsetting cuts to pay for any of it.
The Fee Trap
Buried in the bill text is a fee structure that immigrant rights advocates have described as a pay-to-play immigration system. Under the proposal, any inadmissible alien apprehended between ports of entry would face a $5,000 fee. Filing for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident would cost $1,500. Even registering for the diversity immigrant visa lottery would carry a $250 fee.
Asylum seekers would not be spared. The Senate bill would charge $100 to apply for asylum, plus an additional $100 for every year an application remains pending — on top of existing fees, with the limitation that fees cannot exceed adjudication costs explicitly stripped from law.
For migrants already navigating one of the most underfunded court systems in the federal government, these fees are not incidental. They are a filter.
How They’re Getting It Done
Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process — the same legislative maneuver that delivered the One Big Beautiful Bill — to move this package without a single Democratic vote. Reconciliation allows the majority party to pass legislation with a 51-vote simple majority, bypassing the 60-vote threshold needed to end a filibuster.
Both chambers adopted a fiscal 2026 budget resolution calling for approximately $70 billion in immigration enforcement spending after that funding was stripped from the final Homeland Security appropriations bill. Republicans had been unable to reach a deal with Democrats on overhauling agency practices following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has indicated the full Senate could take up the package within the next two weeks.
Not everyone in the GOP is on board. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chair of the Homeland Security Committee, was one of just two Senate Republicans to vote against the budget resolution — but rather than cede jurisdiction to Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., he decided to participate, announcing a markup for his committee’s title when lawmakers return to Washington.
The Democratic Response
Senate Budget ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., did not mince words. “Republicans are ignoring the needs of middle-class America and instead funneling money into Trump’s ballroom and throwing billions at two lawless agencies,” Merkley said in a statement.
The reference to the ballroom is not rhetorical decoration — the reconciliation package includes a line item for security at Mar-a-Lago.
This is exactly the kind of document that defines what the next three years look like for millions of people living in this country. Not a speech. Not a press release. The actual text — and what it costs to exist inside a system that keeps repricing your humanity upward.
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No.Grassley needed to go before this happened.
Grassley needs arresting.