President Donald Trump signed the $70 billion Secure America Act on Wednesday, delivering funding to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and Border Patrol through the end of his term, and closing the door on any repeat of the agency shutdown that Democrats forced earlier this year.
The signing came after the Senate-crafted measure narrowly cleared the House despite the GOP's razor-thin majority. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise joined Trump in the Oval Office for the ceremony, Fox News Digital reported.
The bill lands after more than 100 days in which congressional Democrats, by Trump's account, tried to block every dollar headed to DHS, a fight that earlier this year succeeded in temporarily shutting the department down over objections to the administration's immigration enforcement.
Trump framed the legislation as a direct answer to that obstruction. Speaking from the Oval Office, he said:
"For more than 100 days, 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."
He added that Democrats want to return the country to what he called the "chaos and crime" of the Biden administration. The president also pointed to results on fentanyl, saying crossings at the border have been cut by almost 60 percent.
The bill provides funding for domestic law enforcement investigations and combating child exploitation, in addition to the core DHS, ICE, and Border Patrol accounts. Trump described ICE agents and Border Patrol officers as "heroes" and said the legislation gives them resources through the remainder of his term.
But the signing does not resolve a concern raised by at least one Republican lawmaker. Texas Rep. Keith Self told reporters on Tuesday that the party still needs to turn Trump's immigration-related executive orders into permanent statute.
"We need to codify what the president has done across the board. So we're going to fund the people who will try to keep the bad guys out, but we haven't codified the actions to prevent them to do to come back here in three years or so."
Self's warning is worth taking seriously. Executive orders can be reversed by the next president on day one. Funding the personnel is necessary. Locking in the policy is the unfinished business.
Every Senate Democrat voted against the bill in early June. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski also voted no. The unified Democratic opposition carried into the House, where California Rep. Pete Aguilar, a member of House Democratic leadership, called the legislation a "$70 billion blank check to ICE" and accused the agency of "brutalizing" and "terrorizing" American communities.
That language tells you where the Democratic Party's center of gravity sits on immigration enforcement. Not reform. Not oversight. Defund-by-another-name. Aguilar's framing treats the very act of funding federal law enforcement as an act of aggression against the public it serves.
Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who serves as majority leader, pushed the House to act amid what he described as "heightened security threats." The narrow passage reflected the difficulty of governing with a slim majority, but Republican leaders ultimately held enough votes together to get it done.
The path to Trump's signature was not smooth. The president initially set a June 1 deadline for congressional Republicans to secure ICE and Border Patrol funding. That deadline slipped.
Part of the delay came from within Republican ranks. Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" drew intra-party opposition. Some conservatives raised concerns that people convicted of violent offenses in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including those convicted of assaulting police officers, could access taxpayer dollars through the fund. That resistance slowed the bill's progress before leaders found a path forward.
ICE had already received separate funding through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act the previous November. But the broader DHS funding fight remained unresolved for months, giving Democrats leverage to shut the department down, leverage they used.
The broader legislative battle over Trump's agenda has included repeated clashes with Senate procedural rules that Democrats have exploited to slow or block Republican priorities. The Secure America Act's passage represents one case where the GOP overcame those obstacles.
Trump used the signing ceremony to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessors. He alleged that 25 million migrants entered the country illegally under former President Joe Biden's "open border policy." He also took aim at former Vice President Kamala Harris, who he said was named border czar but failed to engage with the agencies responsible for enforcement.
"She was the border czar for four years, almost four years, and she never went to the border, and she never called up. I used to call them all the time."
Trump also stated that Harris "never once called" ICE and Border Patrol. The critique fits a pattern the president has maintained since the 2024 campaign: that the Biden-Harris administration deliberately chose not to use the enforcement tools available to it.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin echoed the broader Republican argument in a separate appearance on Fox News's "Hannity," where the video headline attributed to him the statement that "Democrats are more interested in protecting the criminals than protecting the constituents."
The House passage of the Secure America Act and Trump's signature remove the immediate threat of another DHS shutdown. ICE and Border Patrol now have funding secured through the end of this presidential term. That is a concrete win.
But Self's point lingers. The enforcement architecture Trump has built rests heavily on executive action. If Republicans cannot turn those orders into legislation, and Senate procedural hurdles remain formidable, a future administration could dismantle the framework as quickly as it was erected.
The bill also leaves open questions. The final House vote count was not immediately available. The specific provisions of the anti-weaponization fund that drew conservative resistance remain unclear in public reporting. And the broader question of whether Congress will codify Trump's immigration executive orders before the window closes has no answer yet.
For now, the immediate fight is settled. Democrats spent months trying to starve DHS of funding to force the administration to stop enforcing immigration law. They failed. The $70 billion is signed. The agents stay on the job.
The larger question is whether Republicans will use the time they've bought to build something that lasts, or whether they'll settle for a win that expires the moment the next president picks up a pen.
