Methodology & source manifest
Everything on the CBP monitor derives from public records — the DHS FY2027 Budget-in-Brief, the congressional explanatory statements, and the USAspending API. This page is the audit trail: method, sources, validation, and every flag.
Discretionary vs. mandatory vs. reconciliation
The headline is the FY2027 net discretionary base. The mandatory and fee-funded accounts (Customs user fees, agricultural inspection fees, ESTA, and others) are read into a strictly separate frame and never summed into the discretionary headline. The historic border funding from the reconciliation act (the Working Families Tax Cut Act) is not carried in the CBP appropriation table at all — the Budget-in-Brief describes it as combined with, but distinct from, the discretionary request — so it is out of the base by construction and flagged, not absorbed.
The FY2026 column is a continuing resolution
The Budget-in-Brief's middle column is a full-year / annualized continuing resolution, not a fresh enacted appropriation. Where the congressional explanatory statement prints a clean full-year enacted figure (Operations & Support), it is transcribed as a separate cross-reference so the CR and the enacted level are never conflated. Full PPA-level enacted extraction from the explanatory statement's interleaved two-column layout is a deferred enhancement.
Source documents & validation ledger
Layer 1 — CBP money spine (appropriation level)
extract not present at build time
Layer 3 — live obligations + contracts (USAspending, CBP)
extract not present at build time
The appropriation-level spine is hand-keyed from the DHS FY2027 Budget-in-Brief CBP table and self-validated to the dollar at build time. Sub-PPA program detail and FY2024 enacted history are deferred enhancements.