The Department of Homeland Security paid more than $700 million for detention facilities valued at a fraction of the purchase price, with several properties sold by entities linked to Trump administration officials or longtime Trump business partners, according to an investigation by journalist Michael Wriston.
The most egregious markup came in Socorro, Texas, where DHS paid $123 million for a warehouse previously valued at $11 million—an increase of over 1,000%. A facility in Surprise, Arizona, valued at just under $12 million, sold to ICE for more than $70 million, while a Social Circle, Georgia property appraised at $30 million fetched nearly $130 million.
"ICE paid prices that exceeded both prior property valuations and recent market comparables at nearly every site," Wriston reported. The properties "had been sitting on the market for years," according to More Perfect Union reporter Mae Ryan, before DHS purchased them "at a massive markup."
Among the sellers were firms with direct ties to the administration. A Salt Lake City property, purchased for $145 million against a $97 million valuation, was owned by Deutsche Bank—which loaned Trump approximately $2.5 billion over two decades. A Tremont, Pennsylvania facility, bought for nearly double its $60 million value, was owned by Blue Owl, a private capital firm with more than 33 Trump administration officials as investors.
The Roxbury, New Jersey purchase—$129 million for a property valued at $54.6 million—involved Goldman Sachs as majority owner.
Wriston told investigators the warehouse expansion "came from folks very close to the White House who were sitting on properties that were causing them losses every year. The decision was made to buy them at taxpayer expense."
Congress allocated nearly $40 billion to DHS for detention infrastructure, of which approximately $1 billion has been spent acquiring warehouse space for more than 41,500 detainees. The administration's plan calls for a system capacity exceeding 100,000 detainees across 20+ facilities.
At least 13 planned purchases have been canceled, largely due to public backlash in local communities. But the acquisitions already completed represent one of the largest expansions of detention infrastructure in U.S. history—and according to the investigation, one of the most lucrative windfalls for politically connected property owners.
Congressional oversight committees have yet to announce whether they will investigate the purchases. Democrats have called for hearings, but Republican committee chairs have not scheduled any review of the transactions.
As Americans like to say, 'all politics is local'—even in the nation's capital. For residents near these facilities, the markups represent not just questionable government spending, but the arrival of massive detention centers in their communities, often purchased from sellers who stood to profit enormously from federal intervention in a depressed property market.
