What Happened?

Border Patrol agents and immigration officers kept their paychecks last fiscal year, but only because Congress used an unusual budget maneuver to fund them after the normal process broke down three separate times.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) went without approved annual funding three times during fiscal year 2026, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan agency that provides research and analysis to Congress. The first gap started Oct. 1, 2025, and stretched 42 days. Two more followed. Together, they forced the government to tap emergency money and ultimately bypass the traditional budget process entirely to keep border and immigration operations running.

Why Does it Matter to Me?

About 70,000 DHS law enforcement workers, including agents at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration air marshals, had their pay covered during the first gap using $10 billion in previously approved emergency funds.

When Congress finally resolved the situation, it took decisive action. A law called P.L. 119-86, enacted April 30, funded most of DHS but left Border Patrol and ICE without money through the normal annual budget process. A separate budget measure, P.L. 119-98, signed June 10, stepped in with $69.6 billion for CBP, ICE, and related activities. That money is available through fiscal year 2029, roughly four times the normal one-year window.

For taxpayers, the shift means the agencies responsible for border security and immigration enforcement are now operating on a funding track separate from the rest of the federal budget, with less of the year-by-year congressional review that typically comes with annual spending bills.

Both Sides, Now

The CRS report does not include partisan statements, so the perspectives below reflect the structural debate the report describes.

Supporters of the reconciliation approach say it kept critical law enforcement agencies funded and operational when the normal process failed repeatedly. The $31.1 billion for ICE enforcement and $9.6 billion for Border Patrol hiring and training locked in resources for years rather than leaving them subject to annual uncertainty.

Critics of the approach, and the CRS report itself, raise a different concern: funding CBP and ICE outside the appropriations committees removes a layer of congressional oversight. The report describes both the split funding law and the use of reconciliation for agency operations as firsts, and flags open questions about how multiyear funding will interact with Congress's traditional budget and oversight role going forward.

Congress holds the power of the purse. The executive branch spent the money and signed the laws, but lawmakers in both chambers voted on each measure that kept the government open or closed it.

What Happens Next?

The reconciliation funds run through fiscal year 2029, so Border Patrol and ICE have money locked in for now. But the CRS report flags unresolved questions about how that multiyear funding will work alongside future annual spending bills.

Congress will face those questions when it writes the next DHS budget. There is no scheduled vote or hearing yet on how to reconcile the two funding tracks. Until lawmakers address that, the oversight gap the CRS report identifies stays open.

Source: Congressional Research Service report on DHS FY2026 funding

---

Spot something wrong? Report an issue with this article