Methodology & source manifest
Everything on the ICE monitor derives from public records — the DHS Budget-in-Brief, the DHS appropriations explanatory statements, and the USAspending API. This page is the audit trail: method, sources, validation, and every flag. Honesty is the feature.
Discretionary vs. mandatory
ICE's headline is the net-discretionary base (Operations & Support + Procurement, Construction & Improvements). The mandatory/fee accounts (Immigration Inspection User Fees, Breached Bond Detention Fund, Student & Exchange Visitor Program, Detention & Removal Office Fee) are kept strictly separate. The Working Families Tax Cut Act (P.L. 119-21) reconciliation funding is referenced in the Budget-in-Brief but no dollar total is printed in the ICE table — so this monitor carries no figure for it and never folds it into the discretionary headline.
CR columns are labeled honestly
The FY2027 Budget-in-Brief shows FY2025 as a Full-Year Continuing Resolution and FY2026 as an Annualized Continuing Resolution — not as conventionally enacted appropriations. This monitor preserves those phase labels rather than calling a CR column “enacted.” FY2024 is the genuinely enacted column (cross-confirmed by the FY2024 explanatory statement); FY2026 enacted Operations & Support ($10,036,362K, per the FY2026 explanatory statement) is carried in the source data.
Validation ledger
Data extracts — sources & refresh cadences
ice-spine
ice/spine — appropriation topline
refresh: annual — President's Budget / Budget-in-Brief release + enacted statements on appropriation
ice-usaspending
ice/spending — live obligations + contracts
refresh: periodic — USAspending re-pull (idempotent, cron-refreshable)
Source documents
Budget figures are transcribed from the printed Budget-in-Brief tables; every printed subtotal is re-added in the build and asserted to the dollar (the build fails on any mismatch). Contract figures are pulled live from USAspending.