President Donald Trump gave ICE a difficult assignment: dramatically increase immigration enforcement and build enough detention space to handle it.
ICE absolutely needed more beds. Its average daily detention population climbed from 39,314 on Jan. 20, 2025, to 67,180 by July 30, 2026, a 71% increase. The number of authorized detention facilities roughly doubled from 134 to 272.
From the GAO:
As of July 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has pursued an approach to expand detention capacity that has resulted in millions of dollars of waste. Since January 2025, ICE invested billions of dollars in six new initiatives without conducting necessary analysis and planning. For example, ICE purchased 11 warehouses to renovate for detention purposes at a reported cost of about $1.07 billion. In June 2026, ICE officials told GAO they were working to sell seven of the warehouses. ICE reported spending over $20 million on nonrecoverable costs, such as zoning assessments and security, on the warehouses it intends to sell. Waste, which occurs when agencies spend government resources carelessly or extravagantly, is also evident in other initiatives.
But needing detention space doesn't excuse buying real estate first and figuring out what to do with it later.
A new Government Accountability Office audit says ICE launched a plan to open 24 warehouse detention facilities by November 2026. Between January and April, it purchased 11 warehouses for about $1.07 billion.
Then the plan started coming apart.
In June, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullen said DHS was reevaluating the warehouse model because appropriate due diligence and planning hadn't been done. ICE now intends to sell seven of those warehouses, which cost taxpayers $707 million.
Selling them doesn't erase the bill.
GAO found $7.7 million in nonrecoverable costs tied to purchasing those seven properties, including zone assessments and title insurance. By August, ICE had spent another $12.8 million on utilities, security, and other services for buildings it plans to unload.
We're already north of $20 million, before knowing what taxpayers will recover from selling the properties.
One of the clearest examples sits in Social Circle, Ga., a town of roughly 5,000 people.
ICE bought a 1 million-square-foot warehouse there in February. DHS told city officials it envisioned housing between 7,500 and 10,000 detainees at the site, potentially putting more detainees inside the complex than people living in Social Circle.
Local officials had warned that their water and sewer systems couldn't handle the proposed facility. By June, DHS had abandoned plans to use the property as an ICE detention center. Social Circle was told the warehouse could be sold if another federal agency didn't want it.
This isn't an argument against Trump's immigration enforcement program; more arrests require more detention capacity, and Congress gave ICE enormous resources to build it.
Instead, it's an argument for treating those resources like they belong to taxpayers.
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The GAO found ICE pursued six expansion initiatives without a comprehensive strategic plan setting consistent goals for how much detention space it needed, what kind it needed, or whether expensive new facilities made financial sense compared with existing options.
The DHS agreed that ICE needed such a plan.
Here's the part that should make us wince: ICE doesn't expect to finish it until Aug. 31, 2027.
From the GAO:
GAO is making one recommendation for ICE to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes goals, activities, and resource needs. DHS agreed with our recommendation and stated that ICE will develop a strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes, among other things, the key elements GAO identified. However, ICE does not expect to complete its plan until August 31, 2027. Given ICE’s unprecedented multi-year detention funding and the potential for continued waste of taxpayer dollars, more timely completion may be warranted.