HR7744-119

What This Bill Does

H.R.7744 is an unenacted March 2026 proposal, not the current DHS appropriations law. Its House-passed text would fund FY2026 operations and specified multi-year investments, while Division B addresses a funding lapse beginning on or about February 13. A different bill, H.R.7147, became Public Law 119-86 on April 30, 2026. Many provisions overlap that later law, but the packages are not identical: H.R.7744 includes ICE appropriations and CBP border-operations allocations that the later law excludes. The amounts below describe this proposal and must not be added to the enacted package as net new current funding.

Major proposed operating accounts include $17.727974 billion for Customs and Border Protection, $10.036362 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $11.272401 billion for the Coast Guard, $3.128304 billion for the Secret Service, and $2.218634 billion for CISA. TSA receives $10.635434 billion gross, with aviation-security fee collections reducing the estimated general-fund amount to $7.605434 billion. FEMA receives $26.367 billion for major-disaster relief, $3.836748513 billion for federal assistance, $1.667038 billion for operations and $156.419 million for capital work. Account suballocations and transfers are not additional appropriations.

The bill also restricts how agencies spend money: it conditions detention contracts and delegated immigration enforcement, requires financial and detention disclosures, protects pregnant detainees and congressional facility access, and uses reporting gates and reductions to enforce oversight. Separate provisions provide $30 million for the Supreme Court, condition $140 million for air-traffic-controller pay on an FAA efficiency determination, and rescind $203.371895 million in specifically identified prior unobligated balances.

Who Benefits and How

Disaster survivors and state, local and tribal governments gain access to funded recovery and preparedness programs. FEMA allocations include $494 million for state homeland security grants, $584.25 million for urban security, $300 million for at-risk nonprofits, $684 million split equally between firefighter assistance and SAFER staffing, and $272.671513 million for designated emergency-operations-center and mitigation projects. Transit agencies, Amtrak, bus operators and port-security recipients receive dedicated assistance, while emergency food-and-shelter providers receive $123.5 million. These are parts of the federal-assistance total, not additions to it.

Coast Guard personnel and retirees, DHS employees, law-enforcement training staff and research contractors receive funded operations, pay or procurement opportunities. Qualified DHS health professionals retain cross-jurisdiction practice authority for federal duties through September 30, 2026. Employees serving outside the continental United States may receive dependent schooling and transportation support. USCIS employees in specified positions and FLETC instructors retain protections against particular outsourcing arrangements. Air traffic controllers and their supervisors or managers may receive a retroactive 3.8 percent calendar-2026 pay adjustment only if the FAA Administrator makes the required determination.

Pregnant and postpartum detainees gain restraint and care safeguards; sponsors of unaccompanied children receive a qualified shield against immigration actions based on HHS-shared information, subject to specified serious-crime and exploitation exceptions. Journalists and covered interview subjects benefit from limits on DHS intelligence collection. Domestic maritime carriers retain safeguards before Strategic Petroleum Reserve shipping waivers. These protective provisions coexist with substantial immigration-enforcement and detention funding; the bill does not broadly legalize immigration status or end detention.

Who Bears the Burden and How

DHS, ICE, CBP, FEMA, CISA, TSA and the Secret Service bear account-specific reporting, spending-plan, notification and procurement restrictions. FEMA must meet grant-opening and reimbursement transparency rules; late reporting or excessive reimbursement backlogs can trigger $100,000 daily reductions to the specified management account. Detention contractors with two consecutive below-adequate evaluations lose continued contract funding. State or local agencies materially violating section 287(g) agreements lose funded delegation, and suppliers of non-autonomous border surveillance systems cannot receive the specified procurement funds.

The proposal also exposes people subject to immigration enforcement to continued detention and removal operations. Nuclear-power licensees continue to fund radiological preparedness through full-cost fees. Listed Chinese military companies and their subsidiaries face DHS funding and cooperation exclusions. Contractors receiving below-satisfactory evaluations cannot receive award or incentive fees. Funding restrictions and prior-balance rescissions constrain agency discretion; neither a contract award nor a future fee increase is guaranteed. The incorporated allocation table also shifts priorities relative to its FY2025 comparison, including lower civil-rights, ombudsman and some cybersecurity allocations. That comparison is not a claim that all FY2026 resources from other laws disappear.

Key Provisions

• Funds CBP capital work at $222.886 million and ICE capital work at $5 million; provides an additional $20 million for immigration-agent body-worn cameras and a 30-day spending plan. The camera appropriation does not itself require every agent to wear a camera at all times. ICE must submit detention-expansion and monthly obligation plans, with up to $700,000 in additional leadership funding conditioned on monthly reporting.
• Continues detention reporting on custody populations, lengths of stay, vulnerable detainees, alternatives to detention and facility inspections. Incorporates the FY2020 sponsor-information restrictions and public section 287(g) reporting. Preserves the stated no-fencing locations, including named refuges, parks and historic cemeteries; this is not a nationwide border-construction ban.
• Provides $991.872 million for Coast Guard capital work, $6.763 million for research and $1.249 billion for retired pay, plus a separate $98 million for MQ-9 aircraft and operating bases. Bars covered long-range unmanned aircraft kinetic-capability procurement and requires a Force Design 2028 briefing before implementation.
• Funds TSA capital improvements at $330.230 million and research at $24 million. Senior executive officials and members of Congress remain subject to federal passenger and baggage screening. The bill changes TSA reporting on unclaimed checkpoint money to a briefing, not the agency authority to retain that money.
• Within FEMA assistance, provides $99.75 million for transit, rail and bus security, $95 million for ports, $337.25 million for emergency-management performance, $297.113 million for flood mapping, $11.4 million each for catastrophic preparedness and high-hazard dams, and $48 million for warning systems. The $478.414 million training/exercise allocation includes biological, radiological and counter-WMD programs.
• Makes National Flood Insurance Fund receipts available for $226 million in fee-funded operating and mapping activities and permits specified program expenses, including $175 million in mitigation grants. This is not a new premium rate or a $1.505 billion payment to policyholders: that separate ceiling concerns agent commissions and taxes.
• Permits specified firefighter-grant cost-share, maintenance, hiring and related waivers at FEMA discretion. Selected preparedness grants receive three-to-five-year performance periods. FEMA must publish a reimbursement dashboard with the seven incorporated project, cost-share, submission, review, delay and payment information categories; section 313 does not promise all claims will be paid within 60 days.
• Requires DHS transfer and reprogramming notices, generally limits transfers to five percent out and ten percent into an appropriation, and retains purpose restrictions. Up to half of specified unobligated FY2026 operating balances may remain available through September 30, 2027 subject to notice. The $99.75 million CISA transfer finances part of its stated operating total and is not extra money.
• Carries forward qualified access to sensitive security information for civil litigants under protective orders and appeal/security safeguards, as well as federal alternative-fuel procurement compliance. Preserves existing Buy American obligations, limits a national identification-card development program, and prohibits changing the naturalization oath with these funds; it does not repeal REAL ID.
• Rescinds $89.265 million from seven specified older accounts, $111.744895 million of designated carryover balances and $2.362 million from the Nonrecurring Expenses Fund. The first group excludes emergency-designated amounts. These are identified prior balances, not across-the-board reductions to every new account.
• Division B makes the covered lapse part of the continuing-appropriations period, requires available pay and benefit funds to support statutory backpay, and ratifies otherwise-lawful essential obligations. It does not excuse all unlawful spending or supply an unspecified new continuing-funding end date.
• The incorporated January allocation statement supports these program allocations. The later enacted law excludes ICE and CBP Border Security Operations from that statement, changes CBP operating funding to $11.083012 billion, and changes the FEMA pause notice from not more than ten business days to not less than ten. Do not silently substitute those enacted provisions for this proposal.