Two of ICE’s independent auditors have cut their safety inspections at detention facilities even as the government is pushing more people into lockups, Congress’ chief watchdog said in a new report Thursday.
Average daily detention has grown by more than 50% under President Trump, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has opened dozens of new facilities to hold them.
But ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight and its Immigration Detention Ombudsman have reduced their inspections, according to the Government Accountability Office.
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ODO cut inspections from 194 in 2024 to 102 last year.
And the ombudsman’s office lost its dedicated funding in fiscal 2026, plus ceased inspections entirely in January.
There are still two other cops on the beat. The ICE Health Service conducts reviews, and Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office said it plans to surge its own inspections of ICE detention facilities.
But the GAO said the loss of the ombudsman and decline in ODO inspections means fewer eyes making sure detainees are well-treated.
ICE officials said they thought the inspections were duplicative and they can get by without them. The GAO, though, said ICE didn’t have any evidence to back up that notion.
“These changes may pose risks to ICE ensuring humane detention conditions, as its own guidance calls for,” the GAO concluded.
The report is likely to generate interest among congressional Democrats, who will control committees and have the power to lead investigations in the new Congress next year.
ICE is likely to be a major target of those investigations, given President Trump’s mass deportation campaign and the past year’s headlines over people killed in confrontations with ICE personnel — along with a growing number of deaths inside the detention facilities themselves.
ICE has also been engaged in a battle with Congress over access to the facilities. Democrats had to sue to restore their ability to conduct snap inspections, and with ICE now largely funded outside the usual appropriations process, that access is endangered.
The GAO said ICE has added more than 40 detention centers after Mr. Trump ordered an expansion of capacity early in his new term. The lockups are usually rented space from a private contractor or a state or local government with extra beds.
ICE held fewer than 40,000 people in detention at the end of the Biden administration. That figure topped 70,000 in February, after the Minnesota enforcement surge, and still stood at more than 65,000 as of July.
Homeland Security, in its official response to the report, said the GAO ignored the work by another entity, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which has done 60 inspections since the summer of 2025.
“CRCL reviews every complaint it receives and recommends corrective action where appropriate,” said David Schmitt, DHS’ liaison to the GAO.
He also said contractors are constantly asked to fix areas where their facilities fall short.
And he disputed the GAO’s characterization of the ombudsman as a key inspector, following up on complaints by ICE staff or reports from other ICE watchdogs. Mr. Schmitt said the ombudsman didn’t do inspections but rather made “observations.”
The ODO, part of ICE’s internal affairs division, did thorough inspections rating how facilities matched against ICE’s own detention standards, the GAO said.
Under old ICE policy, detention centers that failed two successive ODO reviews were supposed to lose their contracts. The GAO said that requirement was dropped from the 2026 spending bill governing ICE.
ICE’s health service focuses on the medical care provided to detainees.
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