After a Democrat standoff, Trump signs $70bn immigration enforcement bill

United States President Donald Trump has signed into law a $70bn funding bill for immigration enforcement, capping a months-long standoff with Democrats after the killing of two US citizens.

The legislation signed into law on Wednesday provides funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for at least the remainder of Trump’s term.

That adds to a $140bn financial windfall the agencies received as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a tax-and-spending bill Congress passed last July.

Both ICE and CBP fall under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In an Oval Office signing ceremony, Trump accused the Democrats of nefarious motives for seeking to block DHS funding.

“Congressional Democrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America,” Trump said. “They want to drag us straight back to chaos and crime.”

Immigration had dominated Trump’s re-election campaign, and the Republican leader returned to office for a second term on a pledge to undertake a mass deportation campaign.

Despite initially saying his administration would only target criminal offenders, the strategy quickly expanded to target individuals without criminal records.

Immigration advocates have accused the administration of using “dragnet” techniques to boost detention numbers, while rolling back legal protections for foreign nationals to increase the deportable population.