DHS received $178 billion in its FY2025 reconciliation package — the largest single DHS allocation in history. ICE’s budget is set to triple. CBP got $64.73 billion. Meanwhile: FEMA lost 20% of its staff, CISA’s entire red team was eliminated, the office that defends against weapons of mass destruction was dissolved, and TSA lost collective bargaining rights for 45,000 employees. This is not a budget. It is a mission statement.
The Department of Homeland Security has five official core missions: prevent terrorism, secure borders, enforce immigration law, safeguard cyberspace, and ensure resilience to disasters. Over 260,000 employees. In 2025, the Trump administration restructured DHS’s budget and workforce in a way that is worth examining with the numbers in front of you rather than the rhetoric.
THE MONEY
FY2025 reconciliation package: $178 billion total.
- CBP (Customs and Border Protection): $64.73 billion — including $46.55 billion for border wall infrastructure, $6.17 billion for border technology, $4.1 billion for additional agents, $2.05 billion in retention bonuses
- ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement): $74.85 billion — budget set to triple from prior year levels
- Everything else: FEMA, CISA, TSA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, Science & Technology Directorate — distributed across the remaining fraction
For context: ICE’s budget alone in this package exceeds the entire discretionary budget of the Department of Education. The Office for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction — the DHS division responsible for defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats — had all 286 of its positions eliminated in the FY2026 budget. Its responsibilities were “redistributed.”
FEMA: 20% OF STAFF GONE BEFORE HURRICANE SEASON
Nearly 2,450 FEMA employees have left since the administration began — approximately 1,000 accepted a voluntary buyout, representing 20% of the agency’s permanent full-time workforce. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated the goal is to cut FEMA staff by half. The agency’s CORE teams — Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery, comprising roughly 8,000 contractors and 40% of disaster response capacity — had their contract renewal authority revoked by DHS effective January 1, 2026.
A GAO report concluded the country is now unable to simultaneously respond to multiple disasters. These cuts are taking effect as the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season approaches.
CISA: THE CYBER RED TEAM IS GONE
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency lost at least 130 employees to DOGE cuts. The entire red team — over 100 personnel whose job was to probe federal systems for vulnerabilities before adversaries do — was eliminated. A second red team was cut the following week. At least a dozen employees working specifically on stopping foreign election interference were placed on leave.
The budget tells the story: immigration enforcement received unprecedented funding while counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and disaster response were cut
State election officials reported losing federal cybersecurity support they had relied on for threat intelligence and incident response. Private sector executives reported a sharp drop in engagement with government cyber officials. The CISA red team’s function — finding holes in .gov infrastructure — doesn’t get replaced by redistributing job titles. It requires the people who knew how to do it.
TSA: 45,000 WORKERS LOST COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
In February 2025, 243 TSA employees were terminated. The administration’s budget proposal reduces Transportation Security Officer levels, saving $247 million — representing a 3-4% workforce reduction. In December 2025, DHS rescinded the 2024 Collective Bargaining Agreement for 45,000 TSA employees nationwide, effective January 11, 2026.
During the 2025 government shutdown, unscheduled TSA absences doubled and more than 300 officers resigned due to lack of pay. Spring break security lines experienced documented staffing shortages. The proposal to cut TSA staffing further, simultaneously with removing collective bargaining protections, introduces compounding attrition pressure on an agency already running thin.
THE CONGRESSIONAL VERDICT
Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania — not a Democrat, a Republican — described the DOGE approach to DHS as a “sledgehammer” that went “too aggressive, too fast, too soon” and “went overboard.” A bipartisan coalition in Congress has been working to reverse the cuts. CNN reported in March 2026 that DOGE cuts were actively hampering US government operations amid the conflict with Iran — the cuts are not theoretical, they are operational.
DOGE also shuttered the Congressionally mandated Homeland Security Centers of Excellence — national security research centers mandated by the post-9/11 Homeland Security Act since 2002 — without congressional approval. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities documented that the administration’s personnel cuts “bypassed Congress and lacked transparency, obscuring impact on public services.”
ANALYSIS
DHS is not an immigration agency that also does other things. It is a national security agency with immigration as one of five core missions. The 2025-2026 budget restructuring funded one of those missions at historic levels while degrading the other four simultaneously. The weapons-of-mass-destruction office no longer exists. The cyber red team is gone. FEMA cannot respond to simultaneous disasters. The biosecurity inspection corps is depleted. TSA is understaffed and demoralized.
The argument that this represents improved “homeland security” requires defining homeland security exclusively as immigration enforcement. The rest of what DHS does — stopping a dirty bomb, responding to a hurricane, protecting election infrastructure, catching a pandemic at the border — is, by the revealed priority of the budget, optional.
Sources: DHS FY2025 Reconciliation Package; DHS FY2026 Budget in Brief; ICE budget analysis — American Immigration Council / Jacobin (2025); Cascadia Daily / NBC News (FEMA cuts, Jan 2026); GAO disaster response report (2026); CBS News / The Register (CISA red team elimination, 2025); TSA staffing cuts — Bloomberg Government / CBS News (2025); CNN (DOGE cuts hampering government amid Iran conflict, March 2026); Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick statement; DHS Global Biodefense (CWMD dissolution, 2025); NOTUS (DOGE shutters DHS national security centers); Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (2026)
