Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wasted more than $20 million on warehouses it now plans to sell, according to a new government watchdog report, raising fresh questions about the Trump administration’s expansion of immigration detention capacity. The agency purchased 11 warehouses nationwide between January and April for about $1.07 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). By June, however, ICE was working with the General Services Administration to sell seven of them.
ICE reported spending $7.7 million on nonrecoverable costs, including zoning assessments and title insurance, for the seven warehouses it intends to sell. It had also spent an estimated $12.8 million on utilities, security and other services at those properties as of August. Together, those costs exceed $20 million, money GAO says ICE cannot recover.
"ICE pursued its detention expansion initiatives without developing a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its efforts," the report said. Newsweek contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, for comment via email and is awaiting a response. The expansion has been fueled by a massive influx of funding from Congress.
President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025, providing roughly $170 billion in additional funding for immigration and border enforcement. That included $45 billion to expand ICE detention capacity and nearly $30 billion more for the agency’s arrest and deportation operations, giving ICE unprecedented resources to carry out the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. The watchdog found that the agency invested billions of dollars across six detention-expansion initiatives without conducting what GAO said was "necessary analysis and planning." The potential losses could be even larger.
ICE paid about $707 million for the seven warehouses, and GAO said selling them for less than their purchase price would add to the more than $20 million in nonrecoverable costs already incurred. The warehouse expansion plan was developed under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was ousted from the post in March. Her successor, Markwayne Mullin, subsequently moved to re-evaluate the strategy and scrutinize warehouse purchases made during her tenure.
ICE began the warehouse initiative in December 2025, when the agency, at the direction of senior Department of Homeland Security leadership, began purchasing and renovating warehouses for detention operations. ICE initially announced plans to open 24 warehouse facilities by November 2026. Sixteen were intended to serve as regional processing centers, while eight were planned as large-scale detention facilities.
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