Waste of the Day: ICE Wasted Millions on Food
Topline: A tiny contractor’s disastrous time running an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in El Paso came to an end this March. Now, a Government Accountability Office report has uncovered millions of dollars in wasted money and other issues that jeopardized detainees’ safety.
Key facts: Camp East Montana opened in August 2025 as the nation’s largest ICE facility, with the capacity to hold 5,000 immigrant detainees.
The Army gave the small firm Acquisition Logistics a $1.3 billion contract to run the camp. Acquisition Logistics had no experience running detention facilities and had never worked on a federal contract larger than $16 million. It has only 39 employees, and its headquarters is a residence in Virginia. The company did hire subcontractors who had experience working at detention facilities.
From Aug. 1 to Aug. 15, 2025, Acquisition Logistics was paid $11.5 million for “guards, medical services, transportation and meals.” There was not a single detainee at Camp East Montana until Aug. 16, according to the GAO.
The camp was still operating below capacity until March 12, 2026, but Acquisition Logistics was paid to provide meals as if there were 5,000 detainees. That resulted in $7.1 million worth of wasted food, the GAO found.
The GAO visited Camp East Montana last September and found no security cameras around the perimeter, “increasing the risk of a sexual assault or an escape.”
A detainee died at the camp in January 2026, but all “evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed” by contractors. The coroner ruled the death a homicide.
Another detainee died by suicide in March. The person had already shown signs of being suicidal, but they were not placed in a suicide-resistant cell and were left unattended.
Staff at the camp were supposed to clean detainees’ living quarters, but security guards bribed the prisoners with cookies to do the cleaning themselves, according to the GAO.
ICE terminated Acquisition Logistics’ contract in April and gave it to the much larger Amentum Holdings Inc.
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Summary: Addressing the illegal immigration crisis does not have to mean sacrificing basic protections or financial efficiency.
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