Stories the budget tells
Four arcs on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's money, each assembled from public records. Every figure renders live from the same extracts the rest of the monitor uses, and every claim links its receipt.
Arc 01 · topline × the frames
What “the CBP budget” actually means
CBP's budget gets quoted several different ways, and they are not the same number. This monitor keeps them apart.
The net discretionary base is the recurring appropriated budget; gross and total add fee and mandatory accounts CBP collects or administers but does not fund from appropriations. And a fifth number is missing on purpose: the historic border funding from the reconciliation act (the Working Families Tax Cut Act), which the Budget-in-Brief describes as combined with — but not part of — the CBP discretionary request. It is out of every headline here by construction.
The full separation, by appropriation, is on the overview.
Arc 02 · audit × the parent
Covered by thirteen clean, versus never once
CBP does not receive its own financial-statement audit opinion. Its books roll up into the Department of Homeland Security's consolidated statements — so the honest audit story is the parent's, reconciled.
The DHS consolidated statements have posted a multi-year streak of clean opinions, and CBP is a covered component. Over the same window the Department of Defense — the largest federal department — has never earned one.
The difference is whether financial data traces, reliably, from a recorded transaction back to its source — the same discipline every figure on this monitor practices.
Arc 03 · USAspending × the topline
Where the obligations go
The topline is authority; this is execution. In FY… CBP obligated … on contract awards (USAspending, CBP sub-agency).
The full feed and the largest awards are on the spending page.
Arc 04 · enacted in law × the request
What the CR shows, versus what the bill enacted
The Budget-in-Brief's FY2026 column is an annualized continuing resolution — not a fresh appropriation. The enrolled DHS Appropriations Act, 2026 wrote different numbers into law.
The recent arc across all three fiscal columns is on the history page.
Source: Each claim links inline to its primary source — the DHS FY2027 Budget-in-Brief, the enrolled DHS Appropriations Act, 2026, USAspending, and the DHS OIG / GAO audit records · tone: documented mechanics with receipts — not advocacy · provenance →