This article is part of our President’s FY2024 Budget Request Coverage. Visit our Rolling Analysis Page for more.

The President’s FY 2024 budget request includes $60.4 billion in Discretionary spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a decrease of $659 million over FY 2023 funding (a drop of 1.1 percent). When you include all the mandatory spending, like the National Flood Insurance program (see more below) the Biden administration is requesting $103.2 billion for DHS, an increase of 1.5 percent over current levels.

Cybersecurity – The request provides $3.1 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which accounts for the majority of DHS’s cybersecurity efforts. This is roughly 5 percent above the FY 2023 funding levels. DHS is the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating federal efforts to safeguard government computer networks and the nation’s critical information technology infrastructure.

Border Security – Historically, border security has accounted for over one-third of the total DHS budget. The FY 2024 budget request includes $16.9 billion in Discretionary funding for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP), a decrease of 8.2 percent, $8.3 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE), (4.9 percent below current levels), and $12.1 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard (up 3.6 percent).

Immigration Services – The discretionary request includes $865 million for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to help address naturalization and asylum backlogs. This is a more than 300 percent increase over the $268 million FY 2023 funding level (but less than the roughly $900 million requested in FY 2023). The FY 2024 funding would support increasing the agency’s staffing level by 2,210, to over 3,100 FTE, something the Biden administration requested in its FY 2023 budget, but which Congress did not fund. In all, USCIS received over 9 million legal immigration requests in FY 2022 alone. It’s interesting to note that the $865 million request accounts for only about 13 percent of USCIS’s total budget request. The remainder – an estimated $5.6 billion – comes from application fees charged to potential immigrants.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – The FY 2024 request includes $5.3 billion in discretionary spending for FEMA, (not including the Disaster Relief Fund, below) a decrease of roughly 2.3 percent from current levels. The Homeland Security Act expanded FEMA’s responsibilities from primarily preventing, responding to and recovery from natural disasters to include acts of terrorism. In addition to discretionary funding, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) budget – $4.5 billion in FY 2024 – is funded almost entirely through user fees/premiums.

Disaster Relief and Climate Change – The FY 2024 request includes $20.1 billion for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, an increase of about 1 percent above current levels. The request expands DHS’s work with State and local communities to prepare for the impacts of climate change. These funds are in addition to the $60 billion in discretionary spending requested for DHS.

Southwest Border Contingency Fund – In its budget documents, DHS noted that since 2019, the Department has experienced elevated and unpredictable numbers of migrant encounters at the Southwest border. The Administration is proposing $4.7 billion for a new Southwest Border Contingency Fund to aid DHS agencies respond to these migration surges along the border. Resources in the Contingency Fund could be used only for surge-related activities by CBP, ICE, and FEMA. Interestingly, if the set number of supposed “encounters” with border crossers is exceeded at the end of every quarter of the fiscal year, the contingency fund would be automatically replenished. But, by how much and from where is not laid out in the budget request. This new contingency fund could easily morph into a very expensive slush fund. So, we’ll be tracking budget execution on this.