ICE wasted millions in rapid push to expand detention capacity, watchdog finds

With an unprecedented budget, ICE spent billions in a rush to expand its detention network, wasting millions in the process, the Government Accountability Office found.

In a single day in January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spent more money than it had on any other day in either of President Trump's terms, federal spending records show.The agency advanced billions to Chicago Title Insurance in escrow to acquire detention facilities, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. Over the next two months, ICE used $1.07 billion of the funds to purchase 11 warehouses it planned to convert to detention megacenters, seven of which the agency now plans to sell. The rest of the money sat with the firm for months after ICE abandoned the warehouse plan. In July and August, ICE moved $2.2 billion from Chicago Title to purchase four detention facilities from CoreCivic, a private prison company it separately pays to continue operating them.

In its rush to expand detention capacity, ICE wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Thursday. The agency failed to account for long-term costs in acquiring detention centers and lost $20 million in unrecoverable costs purchasing the warehouses it no longer plans to use, the review found. Even more could be lost if ICE sells the warehouses for less than what it paid for them, the GAO report said. Barring any undisclosed purchases, $1.55 billion still sits with Chicago Title Insurance for acquiring detention