Deaths, a Lost Gun, and Wasted Taxpayer Millions Highlight Problems at ICE Camp

On the same day House Republicans voted to give ICE billions more dollars, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report detailing how the Trump administration squandered taxpayer funds at a single detention center.

Specifically, the congressional watchdog, as the agency is also known, investigated conditions at Camp East Montana — an ICE facility that opened in August of 2025 on the grounds of Fort Bliss in Texas — and found that tens of millions of dollars had literally gone to waste.

For example, the government paid full cost for meals and other services before any detainees arrived. And even once the facility started filling up, ICE kept spending on food that was not needed.

Of course, the administration and the Republican majority in Congress made sure that the president’s immigrant hunters have plenty of money to waste. After ICE received $75 billion over four years in the “Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025, the GOP on Tuesday awarded it (and Customs and Border Protection) another $70 billion through the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

With money to burn and a mandate from the White House to expand the detention capacity for the immigrants ICE was rounding up, government officials interviewed by GAO said that the Camp East Montana contract was awarded very quickly.

In response, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, blasted the administration for the “alarming shortcuts” it had taken and the “exorbitant fees” the contractor was charging.

But the investigators didn’t just uncover wasteful spending.

They also highlighted the case of a detainee who was killed at Camp East Montana in January. While the coroner ruled the death a homicide caused by asphyxia, the contractor did not provide ICE with the required reports documenting the killing. In addition, GAO determined that “evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed.”

“Not only is the administration often wrongly detaining people, those detained are experiencing conditions that shock the conscience.” — Sen. Dick Durbin

That’s not all.

The probe also identified issues that “posed serious risks to the safety and security of both detained noncitizens and staff” at the facility. For example, a guard lost a loaded gun, a detainee with tuberculosis was placed among the general population, and inmates with chronic conditions like diabetes and HIV did not receive the treatment they were entitled to according to federal standards.

Furthermore, a detainee who exhibited risk factors for self-harm was not properly monitored and managed to commit suicide.

“This report is damning. We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign truly is,” said Dick Durbin (IL), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Not only is the administration often wrongly detaining people, those detained are experiencing conditions that shock the conscience. Excessive use of force, lacking medical and mental health care, and wasted taxpayer dollars are emblematic of this mass deportation scheme.”

Unfortunately for the Democrats who demand some accountability, the bill that the House passed on Tuesday and that Trump is expected to sign on Wednesday makes it much more difficult to force the administration to institute any kinds of reforms since it funds ICE through 2028.