CBP warns of consequences if DHS isn’t funded
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, told Sandra Smith and John Roberts that the partial government shutdown could create serious national security risks by disrupting Department of Homeland Security funding. He warned that Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement could face failures involving equipment, intelligence systems and employee pay, while calling on Congress to finance homeland security without partisan conditions. Homan also criticized efforts to restrict federal immigration enforcement.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has ended a Biden-era arrangement that allowed federal immigration officials to request and accept private donations for people in immigration custody. The agency said the policy no longer fits the Trump administration’s tougher approach to border enforcement.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott immediately pulled the agency out of a 2022 Department of Homeland Security directive, according to an internal memo obtained exclusively by Fox News.
The directive had authorized the heads of CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to seek, receive and use donated goods or services intended to support migrants held in agency custody.
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The headquarters of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C., photographed on May 10, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This delegation order is no longer needed or appropriate,” Scott wrote. He said the sharp decline in border encounters and apprehensions meant CBP no longer needed private donations to distribute to people held in its facilities.
Scott added that the policy was inconsistent with the Trump administration’s intensified border enforcement strategy and the related executive actions issued by the administration.
“For these reasons, I am withdrawing CBP from DHS Delegation 07107, Rev. 1 effective immediately,” Scott wrote in the memo.
From left, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons take part in a House oversight hearing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 10, 2026. (Tom Brenner/AP Photo)
CBP confirmed the decision to Fox News, saying officials recently located the directive and then moved to end the agency’s participation. The change applies only to CBP; Scott’s memo does not indicate that ICE has withdrawn from the DHS policy.
The original delegation was approved on May 3, 2022, by John K. Tien, who was serving as the deputy secretary of Homeland Security at the time.
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A CBP vehicle stops a commercial tractor-trailer, alongside an image of an officer speaking with a driver. (Customs and Border Protection)
The directive also empowered the CBP commissioner and ICE director to pursue designated donations connected to the care of migrants in federal custody.
Scott said the authority had been requested when CBP was dealing with an unusually high volume of people being encountered, processed and held at its facilities. With encounters and apprehensions now substantially lower, he said, the agency no longer requires private donations for people in custody.
“CBP will continue to provide care for aliens in our custody through our normal appropriations,” Scott wrote.
