The new DHS spending bill cuts the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties from $43 million to $10 million. The Immigration Detention Ombudsman office gets zeroed out entirely — from $28.6 million to nothing.

These are not new offices. Congress created them specifically as internal checks on immigration enforcement. The detention ombudsman was established in 2019 to resolve problems in immigration detention.

The pattern: DHS gutted the offices administratively last spring — mass layoffs, political appointees installed. Now the spending bill formalizes what was already done. The administrative action created the facts on the ground. The legislation ratifies them.

What this reveals is how oversight structures get dismantled. Not through dramatic repeal, but through budget lines. You do not need to abolish an office if you can defund it. The structure remains on paper while the capacity disappears. It is a quiet mechanism, which is precisely why it works.