GAO: ICE’s Camp East Montana Wasted at Least $11.5 Million and Opened Without Required Inspections

The federal government wasted at least $11.5 million rushing ICE’s largest new detention facility into operation, then opened the site without a required inspection or basic safeguards such as perimeter security cameras, according to a watchdog report released Monday.

The report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, said the failures at Camp East Montana offer a case study in how compressed timelines can drive up costs and weaken oversight. The report, GAO-26-108886, is titled “Immigration Detention: Waste and Performance Issues at Camp East Montana Provide Valuable Lessons for Future Facilities.”

Camp East Montana is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. GAO said it opened in August 2025 and was ICE’s largest immigration detention facility to date. The Army awarded and administered a contract worth up to $1.3 billion for the site in July 2025 before transferring contract administration to ICE on Oct. 1, 2025.

GAO’s clearest spending finding involved the first two weeks of operations. The Army began paying full contract costs for guards, medical care, transportation, meals and other services on Aug. 1, 2025, but no detained noncitizens were housed at the facility until Aug. 16. GAO estimated that from Aug. 1 through Aug. 15, the Army “wasted up to $11.5 million” on services while the facility sat empty.

The report found additional overpayments after detainees began arriving. From Aug. 16 through Sept. 30, 2025, the government made about $423,000 in excess meal payments because pricing was tied to the camp’s maximum capacity rather than the number of people actually held there.

More broadly, GAO said ICE could save “tens of millions of dollars” through September 2026 if it used cost-saving measures such as tiered pricing for meals and other services. Yet even after ICE terminated the original contract for convenience and awarded a noncompetitive, undefinitized replacement contract to a different vendor on March 12, 2026, GAO found the agency had not added those cost-saving provisions by the time of the review. The new vendor was set to begin operating the facility on April 18, 2026, but ICE was still paying for meals it did not need, the report said.

GAO said the Army’s contract design was a central problem. “GAO found that the Army did not incorporate flexibilities in the contract to account for occupancy levels below the maximum, resulting in millions of dollars in waste,” the report said.

The report also described serious oversight failures as the facility opened. ICE policy required a pre-occupancy inspection before detained people were housed there, but GAO said Camp East Montana opened without one. It also opened without perimeter security cameras, without outdoor recreation space, and without space for attorney and family visitation.

After opening, GAO documented broader operational problems, including gaps in medical services, unsanitary conditions, failures in tuberculosis screening, transportation delays, an escape in October 2025, and the loss of a loaded firearm that had not been recovered by March 2026. Between Dec. 3, 2025, and March 3, 2026, ICE issued eight discrepancy reports and one oversight report. A February 2026 inspection found 49 deficiencies, including three priority issues involving tool control, ammunition inventory and inspections, and gun-locker access and ammunition accountability.

GAO said the problems emerged as federal agencies moved quickly to expand detention capacity after a January 2025 executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to “detain individuals apprehended for violations of immigration law to the extent permitted by law.” According to GAO, ICE’s average daily detained population rose 71%, from 39,314 on Jan. 20, 2025, to 67,204 on April 1, 2026.

To meet that demand, the Army and ICE accelerated the award and construction schedule for Camp East Montana. Officials told GAO that senior leadership’s compressed timeline drove key acquisition decisions. GAO said the Army used the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, or WEXMAC, to procure the work — the first time that contract vehicle had been used for detention services — and that the contractor selected for the initial contract did not have prior detention-services experience.

GAO made four recommendations aimed at adding cost-saving contract provisions and ensuring required inspections and compliance with detention standards. The Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department concurred, according to the report.

The watchdog’s conclusion was straightforward: corrective action is needed not only to curb waste, but also to ensure facilities meet the standards ICE says are required before people are detained there.