Trump seeks funding for migrant agenda
Money would be sued for flights, detention beds
By: Francesca Chambers
Lauren Villagran
and Bart Jansen
USA Today
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump launched a full-court press this week [03/05/2025] to get congress to provide his administration with the resources it needs to carry out mass deportations.
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The administration is seeking money for detention beds and repatriation flights as it ramps up an effort to remove migrants worth are in the country without legal permission. The president met with House Freedom Caucus members about his budget request on Wednesday. [03/05/2025]
..... He urged Congress to send him money for accelerating removals "without delay" on Tuesday [03/04/2025] evening and told Republican leaders on Capitol Hill: "Let's get it to me. I'll sing it so fast you won't even believe it."
..... Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his joint address to Congress and sent Vice President JD Vance to the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday [03/05/2025] to amplify his message. "since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history, and we quickly achieve the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded," Trump said Tuesday [03/04/2025] evening.
..... The administratrix has not said how much money it needs to carry out Trump's directives, but some of the funding would go toward family residential centers. Trump officials have said they want to conduct DNA testing too ensure children brought to the country by adults are blood relatives. The administration has also indicated it intends to deport families together. His administration has said it is targeting dangerous criminals who are in the country without legal permission but often are found residing with migrants who are not a priority for removal and are then also taken into custody.
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Former President Joe Biden's administration responded to a higher number of encounters by pushing a bipartisan bill that would have provided additional resource to immigration agencies and given the president the power to close the border. Trump said Tuesday [03/04/2025] that new legislation was not needed.
..... Trump officials have argued more money is needed to enforce their priorities. "We need money for more beds," border czar Tom Homan said at the White House this week." [03/05/2025]
"We need money for more flights. We need money to keep concentrating on the worst of the worst. ICE is already in the hole, and we need Congress to step up and give us the funding," After the House Freedom Caucus meeting, Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas, said conservative lawmakers discussed the issue with Trump.
..... "We need to make sure they've got the resources necessary for ICE, for beds, to be able to deliver and get on with removals and repatriations while they're carrying out the president's agenda there," Roy said.
..... But under the current plan, that money would not be appropriated until the next fiscal year, [2026] he added. Lawmakers are discussing an extension of government funding at the current level to meet a March 14 [2025] deadline to avoid a government shutdown.
..... In his address, Trump blasted the Biden administration for increased encounters and said that "virtually all of" the migrants who were taken into custody during his predecessor's term were released into the U.S.
..... "They heard my words, and they chose not to come. Much easier that way," Trump said/ Illegal border crossings often fall dramatically when a new administration arrives, as migrants take a wait-and-see approach before devising to try their luck at the border.
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For those who do come,Border Patrol agents and CBP officers take fingerprints and examine each migrant's available record before releasing them with a notice to appear in immigration court. Trump's tough message, along with an ongoing crackdown by Mexican authorities along migration routes, helped push unlawful border crossings to a historic low in February. [2025] trump aid Saturday [03/01/2025] on his soc la media platform that encounters during his "first full month in office: - running form January 20 to February 20 [2025] - illegal border crossings fell to 8.300. There is no dirt comparison, but the number would be far below the roughly 190,000 migrant encounters in February 2024. U.S. Costumes and Border Protection has;t posted official encounters for February [2025] yet.
..... Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabard, Defense Sectary Pete Hegseth and Vance flow to Texas on Wednesday [03/05/2025] to continue Trump's immigration push. they toured the border,received a briefing and met with government and law enforcement officials in Eagle Pass,. Eagle Pass was a symbolic site of the spat between Texas and the Biden administration, where Texas Governor Greg Abbott anchored his Operation Lone Star and state authorities took control of a piece of the border at the city's Shelby Park along the Rio Grande.
..... Abbott joined Trump officials on Wednesday. [03/05/2025]
In a news conference at the end of their visit, Vance said the administration wants migrates who are in the U.S. without legal permission to return to their home countries of their own accord and apply for entry through the proper channels.
..... "We don't want to have to go around and arrest every persons, but we will enforce the American people's mitigation laws," Vance said.
..... Contributing: Zac Anderson, USA Today