Immigration detention grew fast over the past year, and the inspections meant to keep those facilities in line did not keep pace. In a report released Nov. 5, the Government Accountability Office found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) changed how often its detention facilities get inspected, leaned harder on self-inspections and altered inspection processes, all without checking what those changes did to conditions inside, according to the GAO report summary for GAO-27-109299. The finding matters for the private operators and local governments that hold ICE detainees under contract, because ICE relies on inspections to identify deficiencies and ensure facilities comply with its detention standards.
The report, titled "Immigration Detention: Changes In Inspections of ICE Facilities Raise Questions About Oversight," covers changes between fiscal year 2024 and July 2026. GAO reviewed documentation on DHS oversight mechanisms, analyzed ICE data on facilities and average daily population, and interviewed officials responsible for conducting oversight from various offices within DHS.
How Many Facilities ICE Added While Inspections Changed
The expansion is the backdrop for everything else in the report. From April 2025 to April 2026, following a January 2025 executive order, ICE added over 40 detention facilities that hold noncitizens for more than 72 hours, GAO found. Over the same period, the average daily population of detained noncitizens grew by over 50 percent, to 61,817 individuals.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led the release of the report and put the facility count in sharper terms. In a statement from Judiciary Committee Democrats, his office said active facilities expanded from 128 to 172 over that year and that ICE received over $45 billion for immigration detention in two years. Those figures come from the Democratic release; the GAO summary itself reports the "over 40" facility increase and the 61,817 population figure.
GAO described the tension plainly: "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention facility inspections have changed at the same time that the number of immigration detention facilities and the size of the detained population have increased."
Which of the Four DHS Inspectors Pulled Back?
Four DHS entities conducted detention inspections. GAO found that from fiscal year 2024 to July 2026, three of the four "changed the frequency (decreased or increased) or stopped conducting inspections."
The GAO summary states the pattern without naming every office, and the auditors' central sentence reads: "However, the frequency of inspections has in some cases decreased, there is an increased reliance on self-inspections, and processes for these inspections have changed."
Durbin's release, a partisan account of the same report, fills in the office-by-office picture. It says the DHS Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, which held statutory authority to conduct surprise inspections, "has been shut down entirely." It says ICE's Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) moved from inspecting larger facilities twice a year to once a year or less, and that "Its total inspections dropped from 194 to 102 in one year." The release adds: "DHS now allows many smaller facilities to inspect themselves and usually tells facilities in advance when inspectors are coming."
Not every inspector cut back. According to the Durbin release, ICE Health Service Corps, which inspects medical care in detention, kept its process the same, and the DHS Office of Inspector General received $20 million for extra inspections. The release also says ICE justified the changes by stating that fewer inspections would ease the obligations on facilities and make it easier to contract with local and state partners.
Why GAO Says ICE Is Flying Blind on Facility Conditions
The report's sharpest finding is about evidence, not frequency. ICE relies on inspections "to identify deficiencies in its facilities and ensure compliance with its detention standards," GAO wrote. Those inspections identify deficiencies related to medical care and food service, among other areas.
Yet ICE never measured what its changes did. "ICE has not used evidence, such as data on deficiencies identified through inspections and performance information such as the extent to which facilities are in compliance with their contracts, to determine the effects of these recent changes on facility conditions," the report states.
GAO argues that closing that gap would pay off directly: "By using evidence to determine these effects and applying the results to improve oversight, ICE could ensure that facilities provide sound conditions and care for noncitizens, in accordance with its standards."
The GAO summary excerpt does not spell out recommendations, but Durbin's office described the report as urging ICE to use data to determine whether the reduced inspections are enough to keep facilities safe and compliant, and to adjust its inspections based on what it finds.
Durbin tied the release to the political calendar. "Now that the power has shifted in Congress, the Trump Administration should take immediate steps to respond to this new alarming GAO report, which found ICE has reduced inspections without assessing the impact on detained individuals," he said.
The Lapsed ODO-Rating Funding Bar
One more change could carry more weight for contractors than any inspection schedule. According to Durbin's release, GAO noted that since fiscal year 2019, appropriations language barred funding a contract with a facility after two consecutive less-than-adequate ODO ratings. That provision was left out of the FY26 DHS Appropriations Act.
The release says ICE told GAO that failing ratings will no longer block continued funding. Durbin's office named GEO and CoreCivic as private prison contractors that could now fail ODO inspections "with no consequences," a characterization from the senator's office rather than from GAO's published summary.
What It Means for Contractors
Detention is a contracted business. Private operators, county jails under intergovernmental service agreements and medical and food service subcontractors all deliver services that ICE measures against its detention standards. GAO's report frames oversight around exactly that relationship, pointing to "the extent to which facilities are in compliance with their contracts" as evidence ICE should be using.
In the near term, fewer and more predictable inspections, plus more self-inspection, would plausibly reduce the compliance burden on many facilities. ICE itself cited easing obligations on facilities and smoothing contracting with state and local partners as reasons for the changes, according to the Durbin release. The removal of the two-strikes ODO funding bar also takes away a hard contractual consequence that had existed since fiscal year 2019.
That relief may not last. GAO's finding is that ICE has not yet used deficiency data and contract-compliance information to test the effects of its changes; if it does, it could conclude that more inspections are needed where the data shows gaps. Operators that have kept clean deficiency records and documented their own self-inspections would be in a stronger position if that review happens. Durbin's statement signals that Democrats intend to press ICE on the report, and contractors relying on the lighter regime should weigh the possibility of renewed scrutiny from Congress.
