Although President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is deporting people at a slower pace than President Joe Biden did last year, ICE, under the direction of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, is reportedly $1 billion over budget—even as Trump on Sunday issued a new order directing the agency to carry out “the largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
Even before that order, Trump’s “immigration crackdown” has been “burning through cash so quickly that the agency charged with arresting, detaining and removing unauthorized immigrants could run out of money next month,” Axios reported on Monday. ICE “is already $1 billion over budget by one estimate, with more than three months left in the fiscal year.”
“Trump’s DHS is spending like drunken sailors,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told the news outlet. “They are spending likely in the neighborhood of a billion dollars more at ICE than we authorized, and that’s patently illegal.”
But one former federal budget official told Axios, “I have a feeling they’re going to grant themselves an exception apportionment, use the life and safety exception, and just keep burning money.”
Trump could make emergency declarations to get around the law, sources told Axios.
“You could imagine a new emergency declaration that pertains to interior enforcement that would trigger the same kind of emergency personnel mobilization statutes,” former Defense Department lawyer Chris Marisola told Axios.
“These statutory authorities authorizing the president to declare emergencies,” Marisola told Axios, unlock “a whole host of other authorities for these departments and agencies [that] are often written incredibly broadly and invest a lot of discretion in the president.”
Calling out what he claimed are “threats from Radical Democrat Politicians.” on Sunday night, President Trump declared that “ICE Officers are herewith ordered…to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
But the President also declared that program was to be conducted only in Democratic-led cities.
“In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” Trump continued. “These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.”
The President went on to claim that “Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports.”
Trump reiterated and expanded on his largely false claims on Monday, attacking “Democrat-run cities” and his predecessor while speaking at the G7 in Canada.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Reporter: Why are you ordering ICE to target Democratic cities?
Trump: I don't know what you're saying... Yeah that's the focus.
(This is what fascism looks like) pic.twitter.com/4ed1lR4y4e
— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) June 16, 2025