How Trump’s tax cut and policy bill aims to ‘supercharge’ immigration enforcement

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President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill is headed to his desk, marking a historic federal investment in immigration enforcement.

The House cleared Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Thursday — meeting the president’s self-imposed deadline of July 4.

The massive package sets aside about $170 billion to support the Trump’s administration’s border and immigration goals, which includes detaining and deporting a record number of people from the U.S.

Earlier this week, White House border czar Tom Homan told reporters that Congress needed to pass the bill in order for the federal government to buy more detention beds.

“The more beds that we have, the more bad guys we arrest,” he added.

Both critics and supporters say carrying out Trump’s immigration agenda will depend on how effectively federal agencies implement and deploy those resources.

“It will absolutely supercharge immigration enforcement over time, but it’s not gonna happen overnight,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “So how quickly the Trump administration is able to use this money to fuel its mass deportations campaign is a real question.”

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Immigration enforcement

The final bill allocates $45 billion for immigration detention centers, as well as about $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel, for transportation costs, and to maintain ICE facilities, among other spending. It comes as detention centers operate beyond their capacity.

The American Immigration Council estimates that the new funding could expand detention capacity to “at least 116,000 beds.”

Bush-Joseph said the money may help reduce overcrowding and improve staffing. But she is also concerned that it will lead to a broader use of detention.

After migrants are identified as removable from the U.S., they may be released ahead of their court dates, held in local jails, or placed in ICE detention. The Trump administration has made plans to end the policy known as “catch and release” — which allows people to be released from detention while they await an immigration court hearing — but ending it would require more detention space.

Bush-Joseph said that individuals in immigration custody tend to face greater challenges with communication, obtaining counsel, interpretation, and understanding their rights.

“The nature of immigration detention in and of itself is that it’s harder for people to win relief in immigration court,” she said.

Border security

The bill provides roughly $46.5 billion to complete Trump’s border wall. It also sets aside $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and $10 billion for border security initiatives more broadly.

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About $13.5 billion is put toward reimbursing states and local governments engaging in immigration and border-related enforcement.

Some critics have questioned the need for more border security funding, given that the number of people crossing the southern border has fallen to its lowest level in decades — with slightly over 6,000 apprehensions in June, according to preliminary figures released by the Department of Homeland Security.

But Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports restricting immigration, argued that its better to invest in border infrastructure now than wait until another surge in crossings.

” If we wait until 250,000 people arrive per month, it’s going to be too late,” he added, referring to the peak of monthly arrests hit under former President Joe Biden.

Immigration fees

Republicans also sought to make the immigration process more expensive with increased or new fees.

Among the biggest changes to the immigration provisions from the House to the Senate version is the reduction in the minimum fee required to apply for asylum: from $1,000 in the initial House version to $100 in the final bill. The adjustment came after the Senate parliamentarian determined that the higher fee did not meet the rules needed to qualify for a simple majority vote.

Arthur said adjudicating each application can be costly. ” It’s not unreasonable to expect them to pay at least $100 for their asylum application if only to cover a portion — and a very small portion of that — of the processing and adjudication fees,” he added, speaking about migrants seeking asylum to stay in the U.S.

But Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, argued that the new or increased fees will put an “unaffordable price tag on due process” for many immigrants. According to Altman, among the biggest increases is the fee to appeal an immigration judge’s decision: from the current $110 to $900.

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“Many of these fees are going to become barriers or obstacles to people making their way through the very basic requirements of the immigration court system,” she said.

Safety net programs

The initial House bill already stripped health coverage under Affordable Care Act marketplaces and Medicare for a range of lawfully present immigrants including refugees, asylees, and those with other humanitarian protections. It also restricted eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The final version maintains those cuts while extending similar limitations to federal funding for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to Shelby Gonzales, the vice president for immigration policy at the left-leaning think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

” The truth is that already a lot of people are barred from insurance just based off of not having the right kind of immigration status,” Gonzales said. “The changes that are made in this law go even further.”

Those remaining eligible for these public benefits are green card holders who have completed the five-year waiting period, certain Cubans and Haitians, and individuals residing in the U.S. under the Compacts of Free Association, which includes people from Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands.

Arthur from the Center for Immigration Studies argued that the U.S. already faces a challenge supporting a large number of low-income citizens — even without the additional strain on the country’s social safety nets.

” It is reasonable to expect those who come to this country to be able to provide for themselves,” he said. Arthur added that states who want to provide benefits should be able to fund them.

Gonzales said her most immediate concern is the limits to SNAP benefits, adding that she is worried whether food banks can meet potential increased demand in the future. “I don’t think that they have the capacity to help people in huge numbers that might be losing access to food immediately,” she said.

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The bill’s changes to the Child Tax Credit will also have an impact on immigrant families. Currently, only the child needs to have a Social Security number to qualify for the benefit. While the House initially proposed requiring both parents to have a Social Security number, the final version requires just one parent to do so.

” The child tax credit will be effectively cut off for kids with two undocumented parents,” said Tara Watson, director of the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institution. “That’s a significant amount of money that assists with the wellbeing of citizen children and it will be gone.”

Immigration courts

Over $3 billion is allocated to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities. That includes the hiring of more immigration judges to address the growing case backlog, which was at nearly 4 million cases as of April, the latest data available.

Bush-Joseph from the Migration Policy Institute said the immigration court system is vastly underfunded compared to ICE and CBP, therefore the additional funding is promising. But she noted that the bill caps the number of judges to 800, which may fall short of what’s needed.

Bush-Joseph pointed to a 2023 analysis by the Congressional Research Service, which estimated that over 1,300 judges would be necessary to eliminate the backlog over the next several years.

“To my mind, immigration courts will likely continue to struggle to keep up because the backlog is so huge,” she added.

The bill also includes a huge tax hike for certain universities and rescinds major clean energy and climate research funds.

Republicans passed their reconciliation spending bill today, codifying billions worth of tax breaks for private R&D and spending boosts for defense and NASA. The final bill passed the House by narrow margins, 218 to 214, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against it.

The bill carries forward many provisions from the original House bill passed in May, some with modifications from the Senate, such as an endowment tax rate of up to 8% for certain private colleges and universities and auctioning 800 megahertz of spectrum. It also adds funding for scientific AI models at the Department of Energy and reauthorizes the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The bill now goes to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump plans to sign the bill at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Tax rules for companies and higher ed

The final bill reintroduces tax rules allowing companies to fully deduct domestic research costs in the year they occurred. This reverses a rule introduced in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and in effect since 2022 that requires companies to spread the deduction of R&D costs over five years. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the House bill’s provision would add $23 billion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

The bill also modifies the current 1.4% endowment tax on the net investment income of some private colleges and universities, creating a tiered system that raises the rate to 8% for institutions with an endowment exceeding $2 million per student. The initial House proposal would have raised the rate to 21% for such institutions. JCT estimated the House proposal would raise $16 billion in government revenue over the next 10 years.

Rescissions of clean energy and climate funds

The bill rescinds unobligated funding from the Inflation Reduction Act from DOE’s Loan Programs Office and Advanced Industrial Facilities Deployment program, among others. It phases out the clean energy production tax credit by the end of 2027, though the Senate added an exception for projects that begin construction within the next year.

At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the bill rescinds certain unobligated funds appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act. The original appropriated amounts included $2.6 billion for climate resilience, $150 million for facilities, $150 million for forecasts, and $50 million for climate research, though it is unclear what proportion of the funds is unobligated.

Boosts for missile defense, nuclear weapons, and quantum

The bill includes nearly $25 billion for the “Golden Dome” missile defense shield proposed by President Trump in January, including $7.2 billion for the development and procurement of military space-based sensors, $5.6 billion to develop space-based and phase intercept capabilities, and $250 million to develop directed energy capabilities.

The bill also includes $250 million for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiatives. The bill provides nearly $4 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including $200 million for concept studies of new nuclear weapons, $1 billion to accelerate construction of facilities, $540 million for deferred maintenance, and $100 million to accelerate domestic uranium enrichment.

AI for science at DOE

The bill adds $115 million for NNSA to accelerate missions through AI and $150 million for DOE to take steps toward developing “self-improving artificial intelligence models for science and engineering,” mainly by cleaning and preprocessing scientific data for use in such models. The bill directs the national labs to partner with industry to curate the data. DOE launched its Frontiers in AI for Science, Security, and Technology initiative last year, which includes efforts in AI for science and AI for national security.

The AI models will be provided to the research community via a cloud computing service called the “American science cloud” dedicated to scientific research, data sharing, and computational analysis. The bill notes two possible uses for the preprocessed data: rapidly developing next-generation microelectronics and discovering new energy technologies.

Other initiatives

Space: The bill provides nearly $10 billion for NASA programs, including funds for the Gateway lunar space station, Space Launch System rockets, and a telecommunications orbiter for use in a Mars Sample Return mission, all of which would be terminated under the president’s budget request. The bill increases funding for International Space Station operations, while the presidential request proposes “maintaining minimal safe operations and very limited research” on the ISS. The bill also moves the Discovery space shuttle from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Virginia to the Space Center Houston museum in Texas.

Spectrum auctions: The bill also restores the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to auction spectrum through 2034 and requires the FCC to auction at least 800 megahertz within eight years. It specifies some bands with military uses to be excluded from consideration for auction but does not include carveouts for radio astronomy or meteorology. It would also authorize $50 million to study the value of certain bands.

Icebreakers: The bill provides the Coast Guard with billions of dollars for acquiring new icebreakers, a type of ship that is used to resupply the National Science Foundation’s coastal base in Antarctica and conduct research in polar regions, among other missions.

Radiation exposure compensation: The bill also reauthorizes the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and expands eligibility for those seeking compensation, including adding affected areas and modifying qualifying cancers. RECA, which expired one year ago, provides compensation for people exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons testing and manufacturing.

AI regulation: The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday morning to remove language that would have put a 10-year moratorium on state regulation of AI. The proposal would have established a $500 million program for AI deployment that would only be available to states that opted in to the moratorium.

Agricultural research: The bill includes $37 million for the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and more than doubles annual mandatory funding for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The bill also provides $125 million each year for competitive grants to construct, acquire, or renovate agricultural research facilities.

A famous NASA space shuttle is set to be moved out of the Smithsonian and to Texas after House Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s tax bill Thursday.

The focal points of the so-called “big, beautiful bill” have been an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and cuts to the low-income healthcare program Medicaid. But there is a lesser-known provision sparking controversy.

Once the bill is signed by Trump, $85 million will be allocated to transport the Discovery space shuttle from the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum to Space Center Houston. The shuttle was part of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, which ran from 1981 to 2011.

The provision was criticized by the Smithsonian and others because of the cost and potential for damage of moving the space shuttle.

In a new report by The Washington Post, the Smithsonian estimated it will actually cost more than $300 million to transport Discovery when accounting for costs such as constructing a new facility at Space Center Houston for the shuttle and creating an alternative museum display at the Smithsonian.

Discovery would also be “extremely complex and difficult” to transfer, the Smithsonian said, adding there is a “significant” threat of damage to the shuttle.

Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who flew on the Discovery, also voiced his concerns about the transfer, calling it “ludicrous and unnecessary.”

“I would much rather see that money invested in NASA’s science program,” Reisman told the Post.

Trump has proposed cutting back the science program calling its current $7 billion in spending “unsustainable” in his 2026 budget request.

“If you’re going to cut that and then cough up hundreds of millions of dollars into this for what is essentially a political mission — two senators who are concerned only about what’s best for their state and not what’s best for the country — I find that to be just a travesty,” Reisman said.

Those two senators would be Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans who backed the provision.

A spokesperson for Cornyn told the Post the Smithsonian’s estimate for the cost to transfer the shuttle was “purposefully overblown.”

“An outside vendor skilled at moving military equipment like tanks, military aircraft larger than a space shuttle, and the shuttle mock-up has estimated the total cost to be between $5-$8 million,” the spokesperson said.

Cruz argued in a statement to the Post: “Houston has long stood at the heart of America’s human spaceflight program, and this legislation rightly honors that legacy.”