DHS OIG Audit: ICE Did Not Adequately Plan, Procure, and Monitor Detention Space Contracts Valued at Almost $10 Billion

DHS OIG’s audit report, dated September 28, 2026, covers the detention space contracts and agreements ICE executed in fiscal years 2020 through 2023: ICE executed 46 new contracts, agreements and purchase orders, and OIG found the portfolio, valued at almost $10 billion, was not always managed in accordance with federal and departmental requirements.

Findings include that ICE did not document justifications for nearly 60 percent of the detention space requests OIG reviewed, valued at $2.4 billion, and that it did not adequately justify issuing two contracts without full and open competition. OIG made six recommendations.

The audit stops where the current buildout starts. OIG states that since it completed fieldwork, ICE “received $45 billion for detention space,” and that the report does not address ICE’s warehouse procurement, on which OIG began a separate review in May 2026. OIG also reports that the DHS Office of the Chief Procurement Officer “denied OIG back-end access to its contract management system,” giving it only select data extracts, which prevented OIG from validating the data’s reliability. The warehouse-purchase records are tracked in 2026-09-24–gao-ice-no-strategic-plan-45b-detention-expansion-waste.