A new report questions how ICE is spending taxpayer dollars.
Investigators say the agency wasted millions of dollars on detention centers that were poorly planned, including unused tents at Guantanamo Bay and empty warehouses to hold detainees that never housed anyone.
The report also points to the high cost Florida's detention center, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz.
Congress gave ICE $45 billion last year to expand its operations. The government's own investigators say the agency still lacks a long-term strategy.
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ICE has used its budget to acquire tools for stopping vehicles and tracking detainees.
B.I. Incorporated won a contract in September 2025 initially valued at $1.02 billion to provide ankle monitors and other non-detention supervision services for ICE. The agency has so far obligated $228.5 million to the company under the contract.
B.I. Incorporated is part of the GEO Group, a business already profiting from immigration enforcement as the nation’s largest private operator of ICE detention centers.
The agency has also planned to purchase compliance tools like electroshock gloves.
Compliant Technologies, based in Kentucky, won a $16.7 million non-competitive contract to produce the gloves for ICE. It marks the first time the company has received a U.S. government contract.
New contracting records reviewed by Scripps News show ICE plans to use the gloves “in cases where an individual is resisting arrest or otherwise represents a clear threat to officers and agents.”
The documents show ICE may also use the devices against protesters for crowd control.
