WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a leading member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, introduced an affordable housing amendment to Republicans’ partisan reconciliation bill.

Despite the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol operations are already funded well above historic levels through the end of the fiscal year, Senate Republicans voted along party lines to advance a $69.5 billion reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, including more money for detention facilities, through the rest of President Donald Trump’s term.

“America needs more housing that families can afford, not more unwanted ICE detention mega-warehouses that benefit private special interests. This partisan bill does nothing to address affordability issues, lower costs, or help Americans who are struggling to make ends meet due to President Trump’s mishandling of the U.S. economy. Republicans are ramming through tens of billions of additional dollars for ICE and Border Patrol while ignoring the needs of working Americans,” said Senator Reed.

Reed’s amendment would take $62 billion from the already massively over-funded ICE and DHS put it toward the production and rehabilitation of 2.1 million units of affordable housing nationwide.

Under President Trump’s watch, home prices have hit record highs, the average age of first-time homebuyers is the highest it’s ever been, and more households are paying unsustainable amounts of rent than ever before.

The White House’s own economists identified the main cause: the lack of housing supply.

“Instead of doing something that helps Americans, Senate Republicans want to give ICE another big, blank check. There have been no reforms after the shootings of two Americans and no accountability for frittering away taxpayer money on luxury jets and an ad campaign to promote the former Secretary. Republicans are just throwing more money at ICE and making things like gas, groceries, housing, and health care more expensive for average Americans,” said Senator Reed.

Congressional Republicans used the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill to appropriate up to $45 billion “for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity.” President Trump signed the bill into law last July.

Now the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) is examining ICE’s recent purchases of mega-warehouses around the country as part of an audit that is looking into whether the Trump Administration met the need for new detention space in a “cost-effective manner.”