Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasted millions of taxpayer dollars in its campaign to expand detention centers nationwide to fulfill the Trump administration’s mass deportations, a government watchdog report said.
“Since January 2025, ICE invested billions of dollars in six new initiatives without conducting necessary analysis and planning,” the Government Accountability Office said.
The Department of Homeland Security agreed with the office’s assessments, but said the changes wouldn’t come until 2027.
Download the Straight Arrow app today to get the stories that matter free from manipulation, bias or agenda.™
Point phone camera here
One example the GAO noted was ICE’s purchase of 11 warehouses it wanted to turn into detention centers, costing about $1 billion. ICE officials in June said they would sell seven warehouses.
ICE reported spending over $20 million on “nonrecoverable costs,” including zoning assessments and security, on the seven warehouses that didn’t hold detainees.
“Moving forward, the warehouse initiative has the potential for additional waste and high operating costs,” the report warned, especially if the federal government sells the warehouses for less than ICE’s purchase price, which was $707 million.
The four warehouses that ICE still intends to use are also taking on “significant costs,” the GAO said. That goes for buildings in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Surprise, Arizona, where renovations are on hold because of legal challenges brought by their state attorneys general.
“Without taking action to manage detention investments in accordance with program and project management practices, ICE will likely continue to make uninformed decisions and risk further inefficiency and wasted resources,” the GAO report said.
Straight Arrow reached out to ICE for comment.
In fiscal year 2025, ICE received $45 billion through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The agency also received $31 billion through the Secure America Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in June.
Guantanamo Bay
A January 2025 presidential memorandum directed the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense to up immigration detention space at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba. After this, DHS and the DOD began assembling tents for 5,000 beds, with the aim to increase capacity to 30,000. But after the tents were built at a cost of almost $3 million, the GAO said DHS decided they did not meet detention standards, and they were taken down.
Guantanamo Bay, the GAO said, has been used at a “far smaller scale” than ICE originally expected. The average number of people detained daily in fiscal year 2026 was 16.
“Changing plans and high operating costs have resulted in incurring unnecessary costs, which resulted in waste at Guantanamo Bay,” the GAO report said.
Alligator Alcatraz
The now-shuttered Florida Soft-Sided Facility, called “Alligator Alcatraz” by some, opened in July 2025 at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management and its contractors managed the facility and held an average of 1,386 detainees in FY 2026.
Alligator Alcatraz closed in June after a Homeland Security Inspector found substandard conditions there, including staff not giving detainees enough living space and recreation time.
However, DHS is still reimbursing the state of Florida for the facility through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant program, GAO said.
FEMA gave $608.4 million to Florida for Alligator Alcatraz. Although ICE usually negotiates costs for detention facilities before entering into any contracts, it did not do this with Florida.
“Without a contract or agreement in place before opening the facility, this initiative has the potential to result in waste because of high operating costs,” FEMA said.
The total cost of operating the facility reportedly ballooned up to about $1.2 billion while it was still open. The New York Times spoke to anonymous sources in May who said Homeland Security officials considered Alligator Alcatraz too expensive to operate.
According to the GAO, $249 was required to house one adult detainee per day — about 171% more than the median bed rate of 92% in FY 2026.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I. and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked GAO to look into detention expansion after reports of “deteriorating conditions” in these facilities.
This is the second installment of the GAO reports the lawmakers requested on the effects of the “rapid expansion” of ICE detention facilities.
The first detailed conditions in Fort Bliss at Camp East Montana, where a detainee was killed, and another died by suicide. That report also talked about detainees not getting proper medical treatment at the facility.
Last week, new details emerged about what happened at “Alligator Alcatraz,” with a Homeland Security Inspector General report confirming 79 detainees were at times held in outdoor metal cages that were around the size of a phone booth over a six-month period. Some stayed there for nearly two hours. The Inspector General added that facility staff created cramped conditions for detainees and did not comply with medical or food service standards.
Thursday’s GAO report “has uncovered more of what we’ve come to expect from the Trump Administration — cavalier and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars without any benefit to the American people,” Durbin said in a statement. “Remember when Donald Trump promised to get rid of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ in Washington? Well, GAO now has exposed a shocking pattern of waste within the Administration’s unconscionable mass deportation campaign.”
Peters said the report demonstrates “exactly why the American people are demanding accountability for ICE.”
“The Administration spent millions of dollars recklessly expanding detention facilities that could not meet basic standards, only to later dismantle or retrofit the facilities at enormous cost, all while deaths within ICE detention have skyrocketed,” Peters said.
DHS, the GAO said, agreed with its recommendation that ICE develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide future detention expansion efforts.
“However, ICE does not expect to complete its plan until August 31, 2027,” the GAO added.
Round out your reading
- He built his own Flock-style camera to track police. The police didn’t like it.
- Trump’s apparent joke about letting Iran bomb LA and San Diego catches bipartisan condemnation.
- Grandparents are fighting for access to their grandchildren. Here’s what the law says.
- When the ‘victim’ is made with AI, child pornography cases get complicated.
- Fibermaxxing is trending. Here’s what the science says.
