A federal watchdog is asking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find out whether its inspections can keep up with a substantially larger detention system. The Government Accountability Office report, released Thursday, found that the agency added more than 40 facilities that hold people for longer than 72 hours between April 2025 and April 2026. The average daily population in those facilities rose from about 40,600 to nearly 61,800.
The expansion followed a January 2025 executive order. Over a partly overlapping period, three of the four Department of Homeland Security entities involved in inspections changed how often they inspected facilities or stopped doing so. GAO found greater reliance on facilities inspecting themselves, even as some other inspections became less frequent.
What inspectors look for. ICE uses inspections to check whether facilities meet detention standards in areas such as medical care and food service. A facility’s own review can help managers spot problems between outside visits. The question GAO raised is whether the combined system still identifies deficiencies reliably as the network expands.
GAO found that ICE had yet to use inspection findings and contract performance information to assess the consequences of the changes. The report describes a gap in oversight. It does not conclude that every facility is failing to meet standards or that changing inspection frequency caused a specific deficiency.
What happens next. The watchdog recommended that ICE evaluate the inspection changes using evidence and then revise its practices as needed. DHS agreed to both recommendations. A meaningful evaluation would show whether inspectors are finding problems, whether facilities are fixing them, and whether the same problems keep turning up.
The numbers in the report describe the facilities and time period GAO analyzed. They should not be read as a current head count. For lawmakers overseeing detention contracts, the immediate question is whether the agency can show that its safeguards work at the scale it now operates.