Washington, Sept. 25 -- Months after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spent billions of dollars to expand its immigration detention capacity, a new government audit has found that poor planning and abrupt changes to its plans have already resulted in millions of dollars in waste.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a report released Thursday, said ICE had pursued six detention expansion initiatives since January 2025 without the necessary analysis and planning. The agency has since scaled back more than half of those initiatives, creating wasted or potentially wasted costs.
Among the biggest examples was ICE's warehouse programme.
Between January and April this year, the agency bought 11 warehouses for about $1...