House Republicans over the weekend unveiled a last minute stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown that includes additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to jumpstart the mass deportations that President Donald Trump promised on the campaign hustings.

After failing repeatedly to pass a budget on time, House Republicans unveiled another continuing resolution that largely keeps government spending at current levels. The bill faces a Friday night deadline to avert a shutdown. Its passage may very well be complicated by a number of GOP-favored alterations to the bill that address defense funding, cost-cutting measures, as well as deportations.

The bill keeps a $20 billion sum for IRS operations frozen and reduces non-defense spending by roughly $13 billion. Defense spending would increase by $6 billion, as would funding for veterans’ health care. The stopgap will provide funding through Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2025, by which time Republicans hope to have a full-length package approved. 

Impact on ICE

The bill further provides slightly under $10 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for “operations and support.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), moreover, would receive just over $2.5 billion for the same purpose. Those funds will likely prove critical to getting deportations started in any measure: Publicly available data has shown ICE arrests to be below 5% of Trump’s target. For context, ICE received just over $9 billion for the entirety of fiscal year 2024. The $10 billion sum would represent more than a doubling of that amount given the short timeframe of the CR. 

ICE arrested roughly 20,000 people over the first month of Trump’s term. That pace, projected over four years, would amount to just under one million arrests, or 4.8% of the 21 million illegal immigrants that Trump vowed to remove during his speech to Congress. The current limiting factor for ICE is funding, with the agency currently operating at Biden-era funding levels, which are not sufficient for the task of arresting 21 million people. The prior administration primarily focused on processing illegal immigrants rather than deterring their entry and deporting those who crossed the border.

The $10 billion sum is a short-term cash infusion for the primary agency responsible for deportations. Assuming a loose dollar-for-deportation ratio would remain the same, maintaining funding at that level could put ICE on target for two million arrests by the end of Trump’s term, or 10% of the target. But the stopgap is exactly that and Republicans have floated considerably larger sums as part of their budget blueprints. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for instance, embraced a $175 billion sum after meeting with Homan in mid-February, NBC News reported. Again, assuming a similar dollar-for-arrest ratio, the administration would reach roughly 18 million arrests.

Part of a broader budget battle

Notably, it comes after the House and Senate approved starkly different budget blueprints that favor contrasting approaches to fulfilling core GOP campaign promises. Whereas the House model follows the Trump-preferred approach of “one big, beautiful bill” addressing his tax cuts and border security, the Senate prefers a two-step approach of border first, then taxes. Resolving that fundamental difference of opinion will likely prove the party’s biggest obstacle to delivering a comprehensive budget plan.

Trump, in the meantime, urged Republicans on social media to approve the temporary bill, saying “[t]he House and Senate have put together, under the circumstances, a very good funding Bill (“CR”)! All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week.”

“Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order,” he added. “Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen. We have to remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right. VERY IMPORTANT. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

It remains unclear whether the bill will secure enough support to pass, though Republicans are moving to pin the blame on the Democrats should they not support the bill and permit a shutdown. At least seven Democrats will need to support the bill to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, increasing the risk of a shutdown. Should it pass, however, the additional funding for ICE could serve to expand the deportation operations.

At least one House Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has already indicated he will oppose the measure.

Obstacles to mass deportations: not just money

Border Czar Tom Homan has repeatedly stated that the administration was prioritizing violent offenders, but noted that agents often discover them taking refuge with other illegals, who would also face arrest and deportation if discovered. Even that limited approach led to capacity problems early on, with the administration floating a plan to expand detention at Guantanamo Bay using tents, though that plan fell flat due to concerns over the tent quality.

Detention capacity represents one of the biggest challenges for ICE as mass arrests require space to house potential deportees pending any court dates and their eventual outward bound trips. Independent of funding concerns, however, are pervasive leaks within ICE that have undercut enforcement operations and prompted furious condemnation from Homan.

Trump’s first term saw the Department of Homeland Security suffer from rampant information leaks, largely due to senior personnel embracing the “resistance” and working to actively undercut its efforts. Among the most prominent dissidents was DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor, a/k/a “anonymous”, who confessed in 2020 that he penned an op-ed for The New York Times admitting that large numbers of federal employees were sabotaging the Trump administration. This time, however, the Trump team isn’t having it and the Department of Homeland Security has begun administering lie detector tests to employees to help identify leakers.

“The Department of Homeland Security is a national security agency. We can, should, and will polygraph personnel,” a DHS spokesperson told the New York Post.

What if it fails to pass?

Needing 60 votes to pass, the stopgap faces an uphill battle in light of its inclusion of the GOP-favored alterations. Some Democrats have already condemned the move. Republicans can afford minimal dissent in the lower chamber, but will need all Republicans and seven Democrats in the upper chamber to avert a shutdown. Johnson has already cast a would-be shutdown as a “Chuck Schumer shutdown”, Politico reported. “It’s going to be a tough choice now for Democrats to decide if they want to be the ones to shut down the government, something that they’ve long opposed,” an unnamed House GOP aide reportedly told the outlet. 

Should they opt to let the government shutdown, however, it would take either another modified short-term bill or passage of a full budget to end the standoff, desired by many lawmakers in an era of "all or nothing at all."