In February 2026, about 68,000 people were sitting in ICE detention, according to a Reuters review. That was up roughly 75% from the day President Trump took office the year before. By the fall, the agency was still adding beds and still spending at a pace that Congress’s own auditors found hard to defend.
Money, and what it bought
The fuel is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Congress gave ICE $75 billion through the law, including $45 billion for detention capacity. CBS News analyzed federal data and found the agency spent $19 billion between last October and July, against $11 billion in the whole previous fiscal year.
Some of that money was spent badly. A Government Accountability Office report released on September 24, 2026 found that ICE failed to account for long-term costs when it bought detention sites. It bought 11 warehouses for $1.07 billion, planning to turn them into detention megacenters, then dropped the idea for seven of them and now intends to sell. GAO put the unrecoverable cost at $20 million so far, and said the figure could rise if the warehouses sell for less than ICE paid.
The purchases kept coming. In July, ICE paid $1.47 billion for two California facilities from the private prison company CoreCivic. A month later it bought two more, in Kansas and Minnesota, for a combined $734 million. It also spent $2.85 million on tents at Guantanamo Bay that were never used; the base had been meant for 30,000 detainees and, CBS News reported in May, was holding six.
Florida drew particular scrutiny. GAO found that through FEMA reimbursements, ICE paid the state almost triple the usual per-bed rate for two state-run facilities, among them the now-closed “Alligator Alcatraz.” FEMA paid Florida a total of $608.4 million for that site alone.
“We just saw a real lack of planning overall,” said Heather MacLeod, who directs Homeland Security and Justice work at GAO. ICE says it will produce a strategic plan by Aug. 31, 2027. GAO said that is too late.
The courts push back
Judges have been blunt. Reuters counted more than 400 federal judges who ruled that ICE illegally held immigrants in at least 4,421 cases since October. Habeas petitions, the filings that challenge a detention, ran past 11,000 in the first weeks of 2026, according to court data NewsNation analyzed. All of 2025 produced roughly 9,250. From 2022 through 2024 the total was under 1,100.
The administration relies on a reading of an old immigration law that treats many people as subject to mandatory detention, with no bond hearing. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that reading in February. It cuts against 30 years of practice under both parties, which generally kept mandatory detention for people caught at or near the border.
Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have objected. “It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written,” wrote U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, a George W. Bush appointee, when he ordered a detainee released. The Department of Homeland Security answered earlier habeas filings with a statement that “no lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States.” A DHS spokesperson told CBS News the agency is “working at turbo speed” to carry out the mandate for mass deportations.
Sources
- ICE wasted millions of taxpayer dollars in rapid push to expand detention capacity, government watchdog finds – CBS News
- ICE held more than 4,000 immigrants illegally, 400 judges have ruled – KXAN / NewsNation
