ICE has spent billions expanding immigration detention. Watchdog audit shows millions were wasted

LAUREN GILGER: ... Immigration and Customs Enforcement has poured billions into expanding detention capacity under the second Trump administration, but a new watchdog report shows tens of millions of it were wasted.

The report comes from within the government. The Government Accountability Office says under just one initiative, ICE spent over $1 billion purchasing 11 warehouses around the country to create more immigration detention holding facilities, including a controversial one here in Surprise.

But now the agency is moving to sell seven of those facilities, resulting in $20 million in non-recoverable costs. KJZZ’s Alisa Reznick has been covering it for our Fronteras Desk out of Tucson. She’s on the line now to tell us more. Good morning, Alisa.

ALISA REZNICK: Morning, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so I talked about one project there, just one that’s highlighted in this GAO report — these warehouses. That’s $20 million, they say, has been wasted. What else is in this report?

ALISA REZNICK: Right. Well, the report looks at six expansion initiatives ICE spent taxpayer funds on over the last year. So, there’s the warehouses, like you said, and then there’s some deals with the Department of Defense. The agency planned to detain immigrants on military sites around the U.S. and in Guantanamo Bay. Now, both those efforts either came to a halt or a major slowdown due to logistical issues — but not before the agency had already spent millions.

It also partnered with Florida to set up the tent facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” That shut down less than a year after opening because the agency had failed to secure environmental assessments and a contract before opening it. Now, as the GAO notes, Florida is being reimbursed through a FEMA fund for that site. So, that’s another avenue of wasted funds, as the report says.

Then there’s the initiatives the GAO says could result in waste, like ICE’s purchasing of existing holding facilities and a plan to use federal prisons to host or to house detainees, that is. Basically, the watchdog says these are shortsighted plans that could run into similar issues.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so that’s just the latest of these kind of reports to come out though, Alisa. Just last week, you reported on a second internal government watchdog report that came out documenting some ICE misconduct. Tell us about that one.

ALISA REZNICK: Yeah, that’s right. This was a report that came out in August from the DHS Office of Inspector General. The office audits agency operations and makes recommendations for how to fix issues. Basically, they found that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, is being pulled into immigration enforcement and away from anti-drug trafficking work.

This is a big deal because HSI is sort of this elite investigative unit within ICE. They’re usually tasked with doing these high-level, transnational criminal investigations into things like fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking and child exploitation. The result — the report found HSI offices across the country are spending just less time on all that. Specifically, they found fentanyl investigations decreased by 24% between 2024 and 2025. In fact, one HSI office reported approximately 99% of its work had shifted to immigration enforcement. So, obviously less capacity for fentanyl investigations.

Drug seizures by HSI were also down by almost 40% during the 2025 fiscal year. So, not to bog us down, Lauren, with too many numbers, but it’s important to note one more stat here. Despite the Trump administration’s assertion that it’s going after criminals, DHS’s own figures consistently show the majority of people — about 70% or more, in immigration detention — now have no criminal convictions.

LAUREN GILGER: What does all this have to do with Arizona, Alisa?

ALISA REZNICK: Well, we’re a border state and a lot of the fentanyl coming in from Mexico is coming in through here. Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office estimates more than half of all fentanyl seized borderwide is seized here, and federal data has also shown that those drugs are being found at official ports of entry, or border crossings, and often being smuggled by U.S. citizens rather than, you know, migrants in the middle of the desert. ...

So, Mayes argues the lack of attention to fentanyl interdiction impacts Arizona pretty heavily and the rest of the country in terms of allowing this dangerous drug to continue circulating. She wrote to DHS after this report came out basically asking for those HSI investigators to be put back into their drug interdiction and trafficking investigation roles.

LAUREN GILGER: This kind of narrative sounds familiar at this point, Alisa, like the idea that DHS has been reallocating resources, including staff, to kind of root out fraud instead of, you know, having them do the work that they’re normally tasked with doing. ProPublica reported earlier this summer that Homeland Security Investigations was part of a nationwide campaign to identify noncitizen voters, and that’s a force we just talked about — that’s normally tasked with combating drug cartels.

ALISA REZNICK: Right. So, just like we talked about with this dip in fentanyl interdiction efforts, this is another reshuffling of HSI staff to do stuff they’re just not normally involved in. The Trump administration has long maintained this assertion that noncitizens are voting in large numbers in U.S. elections, but we just haven’t seen a lot of proof on that front.

Like in July, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said 250,000 noncitizens were found to have registered to vote in four states. But as Sen. Mark Kelly and other Democrats wrote in a letter to the agency this month, Mullin hasn’t provided evidence to that claim. In fact, another watchdog just sued DHS for that evidence.

And as you reported earlier this year, some FEMA staff who are normally in charge of setting up, you know, natural disaster response have been directed to plan immigration enforcement efforts instead.

And then there’s Citizenship and Immigration Services. You know, that’s the agency that handles all different kinds of applications, whether it’s citizenship, green cards, asylum applications, refugee applications. But some of those employees have had their work shift to examining and re-vetting old cases and looking for fraud. So, this has been really a trend across DHS agencies.

LAUREN GILGER: What’s the result of all of this, Alisa, on the work that DHS is kind of supposed to be doing?

ALISA REZNICK: Well, at USCIS, everything there is just taking longer. And we have to keep in mind that’s coming from an agency that has already dealt with a lengthy backlog, really, for years. In terms of FEMA and HSI, it just begs the question of whether the duties they normally perform are falling to the wayside. You know, and at least with regard to HSI’s fentanyl investigations, we already have some proof that it has.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Last 30 seconds or so here, Alisa. What has the federal government had to say about any of this?

ALISA REZNICK: Well, not too much. The agency didn’t respond to my questions about the fentanyl investigations report, but DHS has repeatedly said it’s going after, you know, “the worst of the worst.” And an ICE spokesperson told me the same in response to the GAO spending report. He said the warehouse costs the report cited were appropriate and necessary for property transactions and said ICE is using existing detention space with state and county partners.

But it’s worth noting inside the report itself, ICE did agree with the GAO’s recommendations. They said they’d create a spending plan, but not till August of next year, which the GAO says will result in likely more waste during that time.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’ll leave it there for now. KJZZ’s Alisa Reznick, joining us from our Fronteras Desk in Tucson. Alisa, thanks for your reporting here. Appreciate it.

ALISA REZNICK: Thank you, Lauren.