ICE sunk $20M into abandoned detention center expansions
Although U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently scaled back over half of its new detention expansion initiatives, it has already spent at least $20 million taxpayer dollars that it can’t recoup, a new report shows.
As part of the second Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, ICE spent $1.07 billion between January and April 2026 to purchase 11 warehouses nationwide, planning to convert the buildings into detention centers.
Yet an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that ICE “pursued its detention expansion initiatives without developing a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its efforts,” including long-term cost analyses.
As a result, ICE now plans to sell seven of those 11 warehouses, but it has already spent $7.7 million on “nonrecoverable” costs, including zoning assessments and title insurance, GAO reported Thursday.
ICE has also spent at least $12.8 million paying for utilities, security, and other services at the seven unused warehouses, as of August.
Until the agency can sell the buildings, it will continue to sink money into them. GAO also noted that additional taxpayer dollars could get wasted if ICE sells the warehouses for less than the $707 million purchase price.
Despite the miscalculations, ICE still hasn’t evaluated the long-term costs associated with owning the $2.5 billions worth of warehouses and detention centers it has purchased since Jan. 2025, GAO investigators found.
“Without these cost analyses, ICE does not have the information it needs to accurately assess the resources needed to execute its plans, nor does it have an established basis for assessing efficiency or effectiveness of its efforts,” the authors of the report warned.
GAO noted that when Congress authorizes significant amounts of additional spending — such as happened with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the CARES Act of 2020 — “agencies must balance speed with thorough planning to ensure they spend funds efficiently and effectively.”
Republicans in the 119th Congress have provided immigration enforcement and border security agencies with more than $140 billion. Approximately $75 billion in new discretionary funding came from the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” while the Secure America Act authorized three years’ worth of ICE and Border Patrol funding in advance.
“As ICE spends the unprecedented multi-year detention funding provided by OBBBA and the Secure America Act, it is critical that the agency uses these taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively,” GAO noted. “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 watchdog advised ICE to develop “a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes clearly defined goals and objectives, the activities needed to achieve those goals, and the resources and investments needed to execute the plan.”
In response, ICE agreed to develop a strategic plan, “or similar document as appropriate,” that will “identify expansion goals, planned activities, resource requirements, implementation milestones, and roles and responsibilities,” as well as “key operational considerations.”
Since President Donald Trump began his second term in office, law enforcement officers have arrested over 74,000 noncitizens illegally residing in the country, according to the most recent ICE data. More than 12,000 of those arrested carry aggravated felony convictions.
In July 2026 – the most recent data available – ICE was detaining more than 65,500 migrants. Approximately 18,000 are convicted criminals; 18,513 have pending criminal charges; and the remaining 21,675 have violated some kind of immigration law.
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