Here's how much the ICE budget would increase under Trump's megabill

In the summer of 2025, a rumor spread online that U.S. President Donald Trump's budget package, often called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would increase the Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget from $3.5 billion to $48.5 billion.

The rumor spread on TikTok, Instagram, Threads and X.

It is true that the ICE budget stands to see an exponential increase under the budget bill. However, the specific numbers stated in these claims are inaccurate. The most recent version of the legislation as of this writing — passed by the Senate on July 1, 2025 — would allocate at least $29.85 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement until Sept. 30, 2029, with an additional $45 billion appropriated to the agency for detention facilities. In total, that amounts to nearly $75 billion.

ICE's budget as of this writing was about $8 billion a year, according to the agency's own website, not $3.5 billion. The agency plans to spend $10.4 billion in budget year 2025 — which runs from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025 — according to a budget overview document. The amount the budget bill would add would be on top of the agency's annual base budget, which Trump proposed $11.29 billion for in budget year 2026. That proposal was not yet in effect and must separately receive Congressional approval.

As none of these numbers matched the rumored amounts online, we've rated this claim false.

While the House passed a version of the bill on May 22, 2025, the House must now approve the Senate's version before the president can sign the bill into law. Trump gave the Republican-controlled Congress a deadline of July 4 to send him a final version of the bill.

It was not clear which version of the bill the social media posts were referring to; our rating is based on the Senate version, which at the time of this writing was the current one, but we'll also discuss the numbers from the House version below.

Senate bill

On June 28, 2025, the Senate released its version of the budget bill, which included two major allocations for ICE. The first provision, on Page 825, Section 90003, "Detention Capacity," would allocate $45 billion to ICE specifically for immigration detention centers (emphasis ours):

SEC. 90003. DETENTION CAPACITY.

In addition to any amounts otherwise appropriated, there is appropriated to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for fiscal year 2025, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to remain available until September 30, 2029, $45,000,000,000, for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity.

The second provision, starting on Page 904, would appropriate $29.85 billion to ICE for the purposes of hiring, training, recruiting and retaining officers, facility upgrades, "promoting family unity" by keeping detained immigrants with their children, attorneys and legal staff, funding an office supporting victims of immigration crimes and "fleet modernization" — presumably a reference to updating ICE aircraft and vehicles.

SEC. 100052. APPROPRIATION FOR U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT. In addition to amounts otherwise available, there is appropriated to the Secretary of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for fiscal year 2025, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $29,850,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2029. 

Adding the two provisions together results in a total of $74.85 billion.

House bill

The outdated House version that passed before the Senate revised the bill allocated the same amount the Senate version ended up providing for detention centers under Section 70101 (emphasis ours):

SEC. 70101. ADULT ALIEN DETENTION CAPACITY AND FAMILY RESIDENTIAL CENTERS.

(a) Appropriation.--In addition to amounts otherwise available, there is appropriated to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for fiscal year 2025, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $45,000,000,000 to remain available until September 30, 2029, for the purposes described in subsection (b).

(b) Use of Funds.--Amounts made available under subsection (a) shall only be used for family residential center capacity and single adult alien detention capacity.

Unlike the Senate, however, the House specified its budget breakdown for use of the other approximately $27 billion it allocated to ICE, starting in Section 70103 and ending in Section 70114. The amounts allocated for budget year 2025 — to remain available until Sept. 30, 2029 — would have been as follows if this version of the bill had become law:

• $8 billion: hiring additional ICE personnel (Section 70103) 
• $600 million: "facilitating the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding" of additional ICE personnel, such as by investing in marketing or related staff (Section 70104) 
• $14.4 billion: "transportation and removal operations and for ensuring the departure" of immigrants given deportation orders (Section 70105) 
• $700 million: "information technology investments," including tech for collecting fines and penalties (Section 70106) 
• $550 million: facility upgrades "to support enforcement and removal operations" (Section 70107) 
• $250 million: "fleet modernization" (Section 70108) 
• $20 million: "care and custody" of immigrant children and "promoting family unity" (Section 70109) 
• $650 million: "facilitating and implementing agreements under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act," which allows ICE officials to delegate specific immigration enforcement actions to state and local law enforcement (Section 70110) 
• $1.32 billion: support staff and legal representation during immigration proceedings through the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (Section 70112)
• $787 million: "ending the presence of criminal gangs and criminal organizations" in the United States (Section 70114) 

The list above amounts to about $27.28 billion; add the previously mentioned $45 billion for a total of $72.28 billion. (Sections 70111 and 70113 are not included here because that money was allocated to the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, respectively, but the sections would have sent an additional $1.45 billion to other immigration-related efforts.)

Given that the amount allocated by the House largely aligned with the Senate's version, major changes to how much money ICE would receive ahead of the House potentially approving the Senate's revised bill did not seem likely as of this writing.

Other provisions sending money to ICE 

Aside from the larger budget allocations, both versions of the bill also would impose "fees" on people facing various enforcement actions, such as for missing court hearings or for being apprehended by Customs and Border Protection.

In the most recent version, half of those collected fees would go directly to ICE's coffers (see pages 896 and 898 of the Senate's bill).

It is worth noting the amounts listed above represent every mention of money specifically allocated to "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement" in both the House and Senate iterations; estimates, including by conservative groups, on the amount the budget bill would spend on immigration enforcement in total — not just for ICE — range much higher.

Evan Dixon, spokesperson for the House Budget Committee, said the most recent version of the bill did not include any other major allocations to ICE, as far as he was aware. Snopes also reached out to Senate staff and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to confirm no additional provisions in the bill would send significant dollar amounts to ICE and await a response.

To summarize, the most recent version of the legislation, as of this writing, would send approximately $75 billion to ICE — not $48.5 billion — through Sept. 30, 2029. That does not include ICE's base budget, which Trump proposed $11.29 billion for in budget year 2026. That proposal must also go through Congress for approval. The new budget would be an increase from the previous budget of about $8 billion a year, not $3.5 billion. Additional fees may increase that amount.