GAO Report: Largest ICE Detention Facility Wasted Millions, Put Lives at Risk
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has revealed widespread mismanagement, millions of dollars in wasted taxpayer funds, and dangerous conditions at Camp East Montana — the largest immigration detention facility in the United States — raising urgent questions about the Trump administration’s rapid expansion of immigration enforcement infrastructure.
The GAO report, released Tuesday, documents a cascade of failures at the $1.3 billion tent facility located at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Opened in August 2025, Camp East Montana was built to hold up to 5,000 detainees as part of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda following a January 2025 executive order.
Millions Wasted Before a Single Detainee Arrived
The GAO found that the Army paid up to $11.5 million for guards, medical services, transportation, and meals between August 1 and August 15, 2025 — a period when the facility was completely empty. The first detainees did not arrive until August 16.
According to AP News, the waste continued after the facility opened. Because the contract with Acquisition Logistics LLC — a small company with no prior experience operating detention facilities — locked the government into paying for the maximum capacity of 5,000 detainees regardless of actual occupancy, ICE paid an additional $7.1 million for meals it did not need between October 2025 and March 2026. At the end of February 2026, the facility held only about 1,600 detainees.
Three Detainee Deaths and a Criminal Investigation
The report details three detainee deaths in little more than six months. In January 2026, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban detainee, died after being restrained by guards. An autopsy ruled the death a homicide due to asphyxia. The GAO found that evidence related to the incident was “missing or destroyed,” and the FBI is now conducting a criminal investigation.
Also in January, Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan detainee, died by suicide after staff placed him in a medical holding room that lacked suicide-resistant features and left him unattended for intervals longer than 15 minutes. Vision panels had not been installed in the room.
Security Failures and Lost Firearm
The GAO investigation uncovered alarming security lapses. In October 2025, a detainee escaped due to the contractor’s oversight failure. Then, on January 26, 2026, a contract security guard lost a loaded firearm inside the facility. As of March 2026, the weapon had not been recovered.
As USA Today reported, the facility opened without perimeter security cameras, had surveillance blind spots throughout, and the team monitoring security cameras was understaffed — conditions the GAO said “increased the risk of a sexual assault or an escape.”
Health and Sanitation Violations
The report identified serious health care failures. The contractor failed to administer required tuberculosis skin tests, instead using a questionnaire. As a result, a detainee with active tuberculosis was housed with the general population in November 2025, leading to an outbreak. The facility also experienced a measles outbreak.
Detainees with HIV and diabetes did not have treatment plans. The camp could not accommodate detainees using wheelchairs and had no ADA-compliant showers, forcing disabled detainees to be held in medical care rooms. Dormitories were cleaned weekly instead of daily as required, and guards reportedly offered detainees cookies to clean their own rooms.
Contracting Failures and Contractor Replacement
The Army awarded the $1.3 billion contract to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a company with no prior experience in detention operations. The contract was issued through a military construction vehicle not previously used for detention services, allowing the administration to bypass standard civilian procurement rules.
According to KVIA ABC-7, ICE terminated the contract with Acquisition Logistics in April 2026 and selected Amentum Services, Inc., a former subcontractor, as the replacement. However, the GAO warned that cost-saving measures had not yet been incorporated into the new contract.
Political Reaction and Calls for Accountability
The report drew sharp condemnation from Democratic lawmakers. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement reported by Government Executive: “Excessive use of force, lacking medical and mental health care, and wasted taxpayer dollars are emblematic of this mass deportation scheme.”
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, added: “Preventable deaths, inhumane conditions, and millions of dollars in waste are the direct result of the Pentagon cutting corners and handing a billion-dollar contract to an inexperienced vendor that wrote its own performance standards.”
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), who represents El Paso, called for the facility to be shut down. As the El Paso Times reported, she described “a loaded gun taken onto a military installation by a private contractor who lost this weapon, evidence in a homicide investigation that was destroyed, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars paid in this no-bid contract that funded services not rendered.”
A DHS spokesperson defended the facility, stating that ICE had contracted with a new provider and that “Camp East Montana is upgrading.”
Broader Implications for Detention Expansion
The GAO report carries implications far beyond a single facility. The watchdog explicitly warned that DHS’s planned $38 billion program to convert warehouses into detention facilities — using the same contracting vehicle — risks repeating every one of these failures at a dramatically larger scale.
The report comes as the House passed a $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement through fiscal year 2029, giving Democrats ammunition to argue against expanding what they describe as a broken system.
What Comes Next
The GAO issued four recommendations, including incorporating cost-saving measures like tiered pricing into detention contracts and ensuring facilities are inspected before housing detainees. Both DHS and the Department of Defense concurred with the recommendations.
Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit filed in May 2026 by the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and law firm Farella Braun + Martel continues to challenge conditions at the facility. The FBI’s criminal investigation into the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos remains ongoing.
As the administration pushes forward with the largest immigration detention expansion in modern history, the GAO report stands as a stark warning: without fundamental changes in oversight and contracting practices, the failures at Camp East Montana may be just the beginning.