In its rush to detain and remove undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration wasted tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars at a single detention facility outside of El Paso. The audit detailing the pointless expenditures was released the same day the U.S. House approved $70 billion more for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Protection.
The new report comes from the U. S. Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and evaluates how federal agencies perform their duties and spend public funds. The audit is an alert that Congress must step up its scrutiny of how ICE and CBP spend their now-overflowing budgets.
ICE has expanded quickly and dramatically since President Donald Trump started his second term. The average daily number of detainees in its custody increased 71%, and the number of detention centers by 78%. It plans to add many more detention facilities.
Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss is one product of that expansion. To add detention capacity as fast as possible, immigration authorities worked with the U.S. Army to build the 5,000-bed facility last year. The original contract to construct and operate it, potentially worth more than $1 billion, went to a small business that had no experience with detention facilities, news outlets reported.
ICE officials did not inspect the facility, which opened in early August, before it began sending detainees there on Aug. 16, the GAO reported.
The government paid approximately $11.5 million for guards, meals, transportation and medical services during those first two weeks of August, even though the facility was empty, according to the audit. Between October and March, when the population averaged about 1,600, ICE had to pay for meals as if the facility were operating at its full capacity of 5,000, wasting another $7.1 million.
Camp East Montana had problems more serious than wasteful spending. ICE’s own inspections showed that it couldn’t determine whether the facility’s staffing levels were sufficient because the contractor didn’t provide the necessary information. The camp’s perimeter fencing had no security cameras. Staff did not secure tools or keep an accurate inventory of ammunition. One guard lost a loaded weapon in January that had not been found by the end of the audit period in March.
The list goes on. Staff did not document when they used force to control detainees, or that they had sought help from medical personnel afterward or recorded the incidents on video — all required actions. Medical staff did not perform required tuberculosis testing and did not appropriately isolate detainees with symptoms of TB. There was a measles outbreak and ICE officials said little about it.
A different contractor operates Camp East Montana now, but that doesn’t guarantee improvements. More money adds risk but doesn’t guarantee better performance, either.
Close, consistent monitoring, and openly identifying and fixing problems, might. We worry that Congress is not ready for that task.
Have thoughts about this? Send a letter to the editor using our letters form or email letters@dallasnews.com. Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.