Pay Our Border Patrol and Customs Agents Act of 2025

Enumerated powers · passes

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 its enumerated authority. No overreach occurs.

Bill of Rights · passes

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.

Individual liberty · passes

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.

Decentralization · passes

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 control international borders. The federal government is the appropriate level for this function. The bill does not consolidate power upward beyond what the Constitution already vests in Congress.

Due process and takings · passes

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.