After squeaking through the Senate on a 52-47 vote last Friday, the bill to send another $70 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) screaked through the House on a 214-212 vote on Tuesday. All Democrats in the House voted against the measure, which adds $65 billion to ICE and Border Patrol’s existing $181 billion fund and another $5 billion to the Department of Homeland Security’s $12 billion. The agencies had gone unfunded for 10 weeks as Democrats tried to rein in immigration forces following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of DHS agents in Minneapolis this past January.
Voting with the Democrats was California’s 3rd Congressional District representative, Kevin Kiley, who changed his party affiliation from Republican to Independent earlier this year. California’s special redistricting in November 2025 put Kiley’s district more strongly in the blue, causing Kiley to switch to the 6th in this year’s elections. He and his closest rival, Richard Pan, are 321 votes apart with 24 days to go before the election results are certified. Also causing consternation on the floor today was a “no” vote by Republican Tim Walberg of Michigan, according to Politico, which briefly tied the vote 213-213.
Decrying a “$70 billion blank check,” Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal voted against the funding bill, citing the rising costs of everything from groceries to gas. The measure failed to ban Trump’s “$1.8 billion slush fund designed to reward the criminals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th,” Carbajal said. As the Senate considered the bill last week, Democrats had attempted to bar the “anti-weaponization” payout. They also attempted but failed to include language to block $1 billion toward Trump’s ballroom and the nomination of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, the post formerly held by Tulsi Gabbard. Pulte, as head of federal mortgage agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, had put officials on Trump’s enemies list — such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Fed member Lisa Cook, and Senator Adam Schiff — in the crosshairs for alleged mortgage fraud. Cook and Schiff have denied the allegations, and James’s case was dismissed.
The added funds will likely restore ICE activity, which had changed to quieter tactics in Santa Barbara County of late. Carbajal had visited constituents from Goleta, Santa Maria, and Ojai at the Adelanto ICE facility not long before a hunger strike broke out over the poor conditions. Carbajal had noted substandard medical care, inadequate facility maintenance, and a lack of basic essentials such as blankets during his visit. California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office concluded in 2025 that many of the people held at Adelanto had no criminal history. During a previous visit in 2023, most if not all had criminal convictions; further, only seven people were held then compared to 1,570 during the 2025 visits.
“While ICE may argue that the issues I saw at the facility could be fixed with more funding; I argue that the solution is to stop the mass detention policies that have overcrowded these facilities, separated families, and inflicted terror across our country,” Carbajal said in a statement released after his visit in May. “ICE has become an out‑of‑control agency using extreme tactics that terrorize our communities — including right here on the Central Coast. They should not receive a single additional dollar until they undergo commonsense reforms and are held accountable for the violence they’ve instigated nationwide, from Carpinteria to Newark.”
