Department of Homeland Security Appropriations: FY2026 Provisions

Through appropriations legislation, Congress provides not only budget authority for federal agencies and departments to operate, but also legally binding direction on how that budget authority can (or cannot) be used. These directions may appear in three places in an appropriations act: 1. in the language of individual appropriations; 2. in administrative provisions at the end of a title; and 3. in general provisions at the end of a bill (or division, in the case of a consolidated measure, where multiple bills are combined in one). Some of these directions directly relate to the management of budget authority enacted in the measure, while others relate to policy or operational matters. Sometimes enacted appropriations measures include authorizing (or “legislative”) provisions as well. As with any legislation, these provisions are not unchanging. Due to the passage of time or other legislative developments, a provision may require adjustment or lose its relevance. Provisions enacted in appropriations legislation are a focus of negotiations between the parties and between the chambers during the appropriations process, and may evolve until a compromise is reached in the final measure. Rather than reciting the entire catalog of administrative and general provisions in each of the various versions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 4213, H.R. 7147, and H.R. 7744, 119th Congress), this report focuses on the substantive changes from the FY2025 baseline (current law), as established by the FY2025 full-year continuing resolution (CR) in P.L. 119-4. The CR carried forward, with some exceptions, the terms and conditions laid out in the DHS Appropriations Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-47, Division C). This report discusses potential changes from that baseline, as reflected in the detailed proposals for administrative and general provisions made in the Administration’s FY2026 Budget Appendix outlining the appropriations request for DHS; administrative and general provisions in House Appropriations Committee (HAC)-reported H.R. 4213; and administrative and general provisions in the negotiated DHS Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7147), which passed the House on January 22, 2026, and the almost identical H.R. 7744, which passed the House on March 5, 2026.