Watchdog Finds ICE Wasted Tens of Millions in Rushed Detention Expansion

A federal watchdog has concluded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars while rushing to more than double its detention capacity, buying warehouses it later moved to sell and paying for meals and utilities at facilities that stood empty or under capacity for months.

The report from the Government Accountability Office, released this week, found that ICE received roughly $75 billion in supplemental funding after Congress passed sweeping immigration legislation last year, including about $45 billion earmarked specifically for detention capacity. Despite that scale of funding, auditors said the agency expanded "without a comprehensive strategic plan," leading to what investigators called a pattern of costly missteps.

Among the findings: ICE spent roughly $1.07 billion purchasing eleven large warehouses intended for conversion into detention space, only to decide by June to sell seven of them after encountering local opposition and zoning obstacles. That reversal left the agency on the hook for more than $20 million in non-recoverable costs, including zoning assessments, plus ongoing utility and security payments at the vacant properties. Investigators also pointed to Guantanamo Bay, where the government built tent infrastructure designed to hold detainees at a scale the base has never approached, and to a contract at Fort Bliss, Texas, where ICE overpaid for meals under an inflexible vendor agreement even as the facility operated below its intended population.

Heather MacLeod, a director on the GAO's homeland security team who oversaw the review, said the absence of upfront planning was the root cause. "The lack of planning has really led to stops and starts which have ultimately resulted in waste," she told investigators compiling the report. GAO also noted that ICE's daily detained population grew by roughly 71 percent between January 2025 and July of this year, even as the agency's own tracking of new facilities amounted to little more than a spreadsheet that did not accurately reflect its expansion activity.

Democrats seize on findings

The report landed most heavily on Capitol Hill, where Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Democrats had requested the review. In a joint statement from the committee, Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the panel's ranking member, said the findings show "exactly why the American people are demanding accountability" from the agency, pointing to facilities that failed to meet basic detention standards and later required expensive retrofitting. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called it a "shocking pattern of waste" that he said contradicted campaign promises to root out government inefficiency, describing the expansion as part of a broader mass-deportation push he has long opposed.

The Department of Homeland Security has not disputed the report's core dollar figures, though officials have said in response to earlier drafts that rapid expansion was necessary to meet detention demand created by stepped-up enforcement. GAO's report notes that ICE has agreed to produce a comprehensive spending plan, but not until August 2027, a timetable auditors warned could allow further waste to accumulate in the meantime.

The review also flagged CoreCivic, the private prison operator that has taken on a growing share of ICE's expanded detention footprint, including a converted facility in Appleton, Minnesota, and new sites in California and Kansas collectively worth more than $2.2 billion in contracts. Auditors did not allege wrongdoing by the company but said the pace of contracting outstripped the agency's ability to verify facilities met required standards before housing detainees, echoing problems GAO documented earlier this year at the Fort Bliss site known as Camp East Montana, where inspectors later found gaps including missing perimeter cameras and recreation space.

GAO issued several recommendations, including that ICE develop the strategic plan sooner and build flexibility into future contracts so it does not pay fixed costs, such as meal service, regardless of how many people are actually detained. The agency concurred with the recommendations in written comments included in the report but did not commit to an accelerated timeline.