DHS Inspector General opens audit of ICE warehouse-detention buys as ICE pushes ahead despite court block

On May 14, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General opened a formal audit examining whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acquired roughly a dozen industrial warehouses across the country "in a cost-effective manner." The buildings were purchased under a multibillion-dollar program initiated by then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her senior adviser Corey Lewandowski to retrofit big-box-style distribution centers into ICE detention sites with a goal of more than 92,000 detention beds. Real-estate data tracker CoStar found that DHS paid, on average, about 13% above market value for the warehouses, with individual purchase prices ranging from roughly $35 million to $145 million. In one case in San Antonio, ICE paid more than $66 million for a building valued near $37 million; in Salt Lake City, a long-vacant warehouse was acquired at a price reported by IBTimes UK to be roughly 50% above assessed value. Aggregate spending on the warehouse program has been reported at about $1 billion in purchases across eight states.

The Washington Post reported the same day that ICE was moving forward with construction at a Hagerstown, Maryland warehouse despite a Baltimore federal judge's standing order blocking the work, citing an internal ICE memo in which staffers described "exploring what work can be done" at the site. The Baltimore judge had earlier issued a temporary injunction noting that the building's existing four toilets and two water fountains were not sufficient to hold an estimated 1,500-person detention capacity. The Hagerstown build-out and operations contract — awarded in March 2026 to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania–based KVG LLC, a defense contractor with no prior experience operating detention facilities — has a $113 million base value and a ceiling of $642 million over three years, on top of DHS's $102.4 million purchase of the 825,000-square-foot Williamsport warehouse two months earlier. The Post also reported that ICE was preparing build-out and operations contracts for two additional Texas sites in San Antonio and near El Paso, with DHS planning to have both facilities operating by early 2027.

The Standing records this as an instance of procurement irregularity — above-market purchases concentrated through a small set of contractors with limited relevant experience, and at least one contract for which the awarded firm had no track record in detention operations — together with the ICE actions at Hagerstown that test, and on the record so far appear to defy, a federal court's construction block. Incoming DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced a review of the warehouse program in March 2026 and has said he intends to engage community leaders, but the reporting underlying this entry indicates DHS planning to continue using the warehouses as detention sites is moving forward in parallel with that review, and the targeting of immigrant populations for warehouse-scale detention is the population effect the procurement program is designed to produce. The IG audit and a separate OIG investigation into Mr. Lewandowski's role as a special government employee are open and ongoing; this entry records the underlying ICE and DHS actions on May 14, 2026, not the litigation or investigations themselves.