Pay Our Border Patrol and Customs Agents Act of 2025

SI-generated grade · five published checks · not individually reviewed by a person · methodology

This bill is fully constitutional. It provides appropriations for federal employees who are required to work during a government shutdown, which falls squarely within Congress's enumerated power to fund the executive branch. It does not infringe any rights, restrict individual sovereignty, centralize power beyond what the Constitution already authorizes, or violate due process or takings protections.

• ✓ Passes · Enumerated powers
  Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 grants Congress the power to lay and collect taxes to 'pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.' The bill appropriates funds for salaries of Border Patrol agents and customs officers, who are federal employees executing immigration and customs laws. This is a direct exercise of Congress's spending power and is within …
• ✓ Passes · Bill of Rights
  The bill does not regulate speech, religion, assembly, press, petition, arms, quartering, search and seizure, self-incrimination, trial rights, jury rights, cruel punishment, or any other right protected by the first ten amendments. It merely funds salaries for existing federal employees during a shutdown. No rights are implicated.
• ✓ Passes · Individual sovereignty
  The bill imposes no restriction on any individual's person, property, speech, labor, or belief. It does not mandate any action by private citizens. It only authorizes payment to federal employees who are already required by law to work during a shutdown. Individual sovereignty is untouched.
• ✓ Passes · Decentralization
  The bill funds federal employees who enforce federal immigration and customs laws—areas constitutionally assigned to the federal government under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 (naturalization) and the plenary federal power over immigration. An individual or family cannot handle border security; a local community or county cannot manage national border enforcement; a state cannot unilaterally cont…
• ✓ Passes · Due process and takings
  The bill does not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process. It does not take private property for public use. It simply provides appropriations to pay federal employees for work already performed. No procedural or substantive due process issue arises, and no takings clause analysis is triggered.

Sources: Congress.gov: HR 1916 summary