U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has wasted tens of millions of dollars as it seeks to rapidly increase its detention space for migrants, and the waste will likely continue due to ongoing mismanagement, a government watchdog warned Thursday.
In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal agency, said that ICE has spent billions of dollars to expand its detention capacity as part of President Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. In one of its major initiatives to build out detention capacity, ICE purchased 11 warehouses for $1.07 billion, but due to poor planning and analysis, the agency now intends to sell seven of those warehouses, wasting more than $20 million in non-recoverable costs.
Waste is evident in some of the other immigration-related initiatives carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, as well, GAO said. As part of an effort to expand prison facilities at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, DHS and the Department of Defense spent $2.85 million on tents that were never used. Millions of dollars were wasted on a plan to open new ICE detention facilities on a military base in Montana, and DHS is reimbursing the state of Florida for its now-closed “Alligator Alley” detention facility at a rate that is 171% higher than ICE’s median rate per bed.
Time to make a plan: “As ICE spends the unprecedented multi-year detention funding provided by OBBBA [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] and the Secure America Act, it is critical that the agency uses these taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively,” the GAO report says. “In the absence of a comprehensive strategic plan to guide detention expansion, ICE has wasted funds on unsuccessful detention initiatives and lacks important information about the long-term affordability of its investments.”
The GAO offered this advice: “The Director of ICE should develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes goals, activities, and resource needs.”
The agencies discussed in the analysis were provided with a draft of the report, and GAO said that DHS “agreed with our recommendation and discussed plans to address it.” DHS also stated that ICE “will develop a strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes the key elements we identified, as well as others, such as operational considerations and coordination with stakeholders.” However, the ICE plan is not expected to be completed before August 31, 2027, prompting GAO to suggest that “more timely completion may be warranted” given the extraordinary level of funding provided to ICE and the “potential for continued waste of taxpayer dollars.”