HR7147-119

What This Bill Does

This enacted appropriations law provides fiscal year 2026 Homeland Security funding and adds further continuing-appropriations rules for the lapse period that began around February 14, 2026. It makes the House Appropriations explanatory statement legally operative for allocation of DHS funds, but expressly gives no force to the printed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection Border Security Operations table amounts and sets those entries at $0. It layers detailed oversight conditions on DHS spending, including monthly budget and staffing reports, Inspector General review of noncompetitive grants and contracts, acquisition-program briefings, pilot-project documentation, Public Law 119-21 spend-plan oversight, and limits on reprogramming or transfers without appropriations-committee notice. The law also provides targeted funding such as $20 million for body-worn cameras for immigration-enforcement officers, $98 million for Coast Guard MQ-9 aircraft and associated base stations, $2 million for National Computer Forensics Institute facilities used by the Secret Service, $30 million for Supreme Court salaries and expenses, and $140 million for FAA air traffic controller pay increases.

Who Benefits and How

Congressional appropriations committees and the DHS Inspector General gain more frequent, enforceable visibility into DHS obligations, acquisition programs, FEMA grants, ICE detention spending, border-support requests, classified-program funding, and Public Law 119-21 funds. U.S. Customs and Border Protection gains flexibility for customs expenses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, National Targeting Center operations, fee collections, autonomous border-surveillance procurement, and personal-use prescription-drug importation rules at the Canadian border. The Coast Guard benefits from protected funding for civil engineering units, housing-fund deposits, the legacy Operations Systems Center, MQ-9 procurement, and future-years capital planning. FEMA grant applicants, fire departments, disaster-reimbursement claimants, and state or local emergency-management recipients benefit from application deadlines, grant-waiver authority, minimum grant performance periods, disaster-reimbursement dashboards, and restrictions on pausing FEMA training or grants without notice. Pregnant, postpartum, nursing individuals and infants in CBP custody, pregnant women in DHS custody, and detainees whose records concern death, abuse, sexual assault, criminal activity, or disruption receive custody safeguards, restraint limits, and record-preservation protections.

Who Bears the Burden and How

DHS components bear the largest compliance burden: the Secretary, CFO, Under Secretary for Management, CBP Commissioner, ICE Director, TSA Administrator, Coast Guard Commandant, FEMA Administrator, USCIS Director, FLETC Director, CISA, DHS Intelligence and Analysis, and DHS grant offices must file plans, brief Congress, preserve operations, document pilots, and meet notification thresholds before spending or changing operations. Contractors and grant recipients face restrictions when awards are noncompetitive, below-satisfactory contractor performance cannot receive incentive fees, covered Chinese military companies and subsidiaries cannot receive DHS contracts, grants, loans, guarantees, memoranda of understanding, or cooperative agreements, and detention contractors can lose ICE funding after repeated inadequate evaluations. DHS budget managers are constrained by reprogramming limits, Buy American rules, first-class travel restrictions, conference-attendance notices, structural pay-reform notices, Technology Modernization Fund notices, and prohibitions on national ID card development, Arms Trade Treaty implementation without Senate ratification, Guantanamo detainee transfers into the United States, and unmonitored firearm transfers to suspected cartel agents.

Key Provisions

• Makes FY2026 DHS appropriations and the explanatory statement operative while excluding ICE and CBP Border Security Operations table amounts and setting those entries to $0.
• Requires DHS reports on noncompetitive awards, monthly budget and staffing, acquisition programs, pilots and demonstrations, Public Law 119-21 spending, FEMA grant timing, ICE detention plans, migrant-arrival estimates, removal and detention estimates, and Department of Defense border-support requests.
• Provides $20 million for DHS body-worn cameras, $98 million for Coast Guard MQ-9 aircraft and base stations, $2 million for Secret Service-used National Computer Forensics Institute facilities, $30 million for the Supreme Court, and $140 million for FAA air traffic controller pay increases.
• Protects specific operations and facilities, including CBP vetting at the National Targeting Center, autonomous border-surveillance procurement, Coast Guard civil engineering units and Operations Systems Center staffing, USCIS immigration-service jobs, FLETC instructor functions, and DHS detention oversight visits by Members of Congress.
• Conditions or bars uses of funds for new border crossing fees, non-autonomous border surveillance, deficient ICE detention contractors, certain 287(g) delegations after Inspector General findings, A-76 competitions for Coast Guard or USCIS services, national identification-card development, covered Chinese military company awards, Arms Trade Treaty implementation, Guantanamo detainee transfers, and unmonitored firearm transfers to suspected cartel agents.
• Further amends the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026, treats the February 2026 lapse period as covered time, permits back pay and benefits for personnel under 31 U.S.C. 1341(c), and ratifies obligations incurred to protect life and property or wind down government functions during the lapse.