Democrats rode voter anger over immigration enforcement to major midterm gains, including in Texas, but the agency at the center of that fight still has a huge pot of money, NPR reported.
Congress awarded ICE and Customs and Border Protection around $240 billion in 2026, after essentially giving immigration enforcement a blank check in 2025, NPR said. That is enough, the report said, to run the mass-deportation operation for the rest of President Trump's term. ICE is already the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The day after the election, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted three words: "Deportations will continue."
In Texas, voters elected Democrat Gina Hinojosa as the state's first Latina governor, flipped the Texas House, and elected the state's first Democratic U.S. senator in nearly 40 years. Counties along the U.S.-Mexico border that supported Trump in 2024 flipped Democratic. Artemio Muñiz of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans told NPR that "the Hispanic community got fed up" with "anti-immigrant-type policies" and that effective outreach would have to include "a reasonable solution for immigration." Advocacy groups are already pressing Hinojosa to end the state's partnership with ICE on "day one," said César Espinosa of the Houston group FIEL, and Houston's mayor is reducing his police department's cooperation with the agency.
Oversight, clawbacks and a promised veto
Nationwide, immigrant advocates want ICE defunded or sharply restricted. "We demand that the incoming Congress hold ICE accountable," said Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigrant Coalition. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, who is set to chair the House Oversight Committee, has promised to look into ICE accountability; on Election Day his advice to Republicans was "Lawyer up." Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, likely to chair House Homeland Security, said ICE's "illegal, out-of-control activities" have killed, assaulted and incarcerated people, and that he wants body-worn cameras required and face coverings banned for federal immigration agents.
Congress could try to claw the money back. The major hurdle is Trump, who said after the election that he would welcome the nickname "Mr. Veto." A few days later, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — whose brief has been immigration control and mass deportations, and who NPR said was deeply involved in converting warehouses into detention centers — was promoted to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Naureen Shah of the ACLU said subpoenas and the threat of lost funding may be the most powerful tools: "ICE has to be afraid." Vice President JD Vance, explaining the Republican loss, cited the economy, inflation and the Iran war, left immigration enforcement off that list, and said he is open to focusing more on businesses that hire undocumented workers, while rejecting amnesty.