Immigrant Detention Funding Kept at Trump-Era Levels in Omnibus

Immigrants’ rights advocates are voicing their opposition to funding for Trump-era detention levels that lawmakers included in their fiscal 2022 spending deal.

The omnibus bill (H.R. 2471) released early Wednesday would keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity flat at 34,000 beds despite Democrats’ earlier efforts to cut levels by several thousand beds.

Their retreat on proposals to reduce ICE capacity is one of several instances of progressive immigration goals falling out of the final package. The proposal also would fund ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection at levels higher than the Biden administration requested and ...