A public accounting of the 2026 ICE budget, the growth of immigration detention, and how that spending compares with modern militaries and the British Army in colonial America.
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Updated July 15, 2026 | About 8 minutes
In 2025, Congress gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, a $75 billion supplement to spend over four years. That came on top of a base budget of roughly $10 billion a year.1 If the added money is spent evenly, the annual total comes to nearly $29 billion. That makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history and gives it a budget larger than the military spending of many countries.1
That scale is especially striking in 2026, during the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration criticized the king for keeping standing armies in the colonies during peacetime. This page compares today's ICE funding with military budgets, British troop levels in 1775, and the cost of immigration detention.
The figures below come from public budgets, historical records, and independent reporting. Full citations and a note on the calculations appear at the end.
Estimated effective annual funding
$28.7 billion / year
Approximately $10 billion in base funding, plus one-fourth of the $75 billion supplement. Of that supplement, $45 billion is reserved for detention.1,2
Comparison 1
ICE Budget Compared With Global Military Spending
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If ICE were treated as a country's entire military, its estimated annual funding would rank among the twenty largest military budgets in the world. It would sit ahead of Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, and Iran; roughly level with the Netherlands; and below Canada and Australia. The chart uses each country's total 2025 military expenditure as reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.3,4
ICE, a federal immigration enforcement agencyA nation's entire armed forces
View the same figures as a table
Force
US$ billions / year
Kind
Military expenditure, 2025, current US$ billions (SIPRI). ICE bar = base budget plus one-quarter of its four-year supplement.1,3,4
ICE has nearly four dollars in estimated annual funding for every dollar Iran spends on its military, including its army, navy, air force, and Revolutionary Guard.3
Comparison 2
The British Army in Colonial America
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In 1775, when fighting began at Lexington and Concord, King George III had 48,647 soldiers across the British Empire. About 8,000 redcoats were stationed in North America.6 Their presence, the cost of the garrison, and the taxes imposed to help pay for it all fed colonial opposition. The comparisons below put the scale of today's ICE budget beside those historical figures. Eighteenth-century pounds are converted to modern values using the method explained below.
Item I.A day against a year
Colonial garrison for one year
≈ $72M /yr
Britain spent £384,000 per year to garrison colonial America from 1763 to 1775.5
One day of estimated ICE funding is slightly more than the modern equivalent of Britain's average annual cost for the colonial garrison. Parliament used taxes such as the Stamp Act to recover part of that expense.
Item II.Thirteen wars at once
Britain's war per year
≈ $2.2B /yr
Britain spent about £12 million per year on the Revolutionary War, or roughly £1.75 billion in 2018 terms.5
ICE per year
≈ $28.7B /yr
About 13 times Britain's estimated annual war cost in modern terms.1,5
Britain's annual cost for the Revolutionary War, including fleets, hired troops, and an army that reached roughly 56,000 soldiers, was about one-thirteenth of ICE's estimated annual funding in modern terms.
Item III.Beds against redcoats
The entire British Army, 1775
48,647 soldiers
All British infantry, cavalry, and artillery regiments worldwide.6
ICE detention capacity, funded
135,000 beds
Capacity the $45B detention fund can sustain through 2029; near-term target 92,6002,8
The funded ICE detention capacity is nearly three times the size of the entire British Army in 1775. The detention fund alone also exceeds the budget request for the full U.S. federal prison system.2
Item IV.Officers against occupiers
Redcoats in North America, 1775
≈ 8,000 men
The "standing army" the colonists rebelled against6
ICE personnel, 2026
22,000+ and hiring
After a surge of ~12,000 new officers; training shortened to 8 weeks10
ICE now has close to three employees for every British soldier stationed in North America in 1775.
Where the Money Goes
ICE Detention Spending and Enforcement Flights
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Budget documents and independent flight tracking show how the new ICE funding is being used. The largest share goes to immigration detention, along with expanded enforcement flights, new facilities, and faster hiring.
Removal flights | April 2026
245 / month
The highest monthly count since tracking began in 2020, equal to roughly eight deportation flights per day.7
All enforcement flights | March 2026
1,794 / month
Removal flights and domestic transfer shuttles increased 122 percent from the previous year.7
Detention expansion
$45B fund
Mega-centers of up to 10,000 beds each; a 400% jump in annual detention money.2,8
Officer training
8 weeks
Cut from 13 weeks to field new officers faster. A British recruit of 1775 drilled longer.10
The Historical Question
Standing Armies and the Declaration of Independence
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One of the twenty-seven grievances in the Declaration of Independence concerned standing armies. In July 1776, the document charged:
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."
The agencies, missions, and historical settings are different. The comparison does not claim they are identical. It shows how large federal immigration enforcement has become and places that growth in a historical frame.