Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to sell seven warehouses acquired during a $1.07 billion detention expansion, after reporting more than $20 million in unrecoverable expenses, as a contractor's disputed account raises questions about how the administration chose its detention designs.
The contractor told NPR that the Department of Homeland Security rejected his company's proposal for FEMA-style camps in Texas, which he considered more humane than converting warehouses. He attributed the rejection to preferences conveyed by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who was not at the meeting.
The White House denied the allegation. Spokesperson Lauren Bis said the contractor had never met or spoken with Miller and characterized the account as "false hearsay." She said Miller had never advocated worse detention conditions.
The dispute comes as ICE retreats from much of its warehouse acquisition program. The agency bought 11 properties between January and April 2026, but by June had told the Government Accountability Office it was working with the General Services Administration to sell seven.
Those seven properties cost approximately $707 million. ICE reported more than $20 million in costs it could not recover, including assessments, security and other services associated with the sites earmarked for sale.
The eventual financial loss remains uncertain. Sale proceeds could recover some acquisition spending, while prices below what the government paid would add to the costs already identified as unrecoverable. The figures do not establish that the entire $707 million investment has been lost.
The contractor's account concerns an earlier choice about how to house detainees. He said his team presented its alternative during a meeting with a senior DHS official and was told the warehouse approach would proceed despite objections.
"Miller did not want the facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were humane," the contractor told NPR. "We were told point-blank that that was not what the administration wanted."
He later described his understanding of Miller's position this way: "Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel."
Those statements describe what the contractor says others communicated to him, rather than remarks he heard directly from Miller. Bis also called the allegations "defamatory."
Separately, lawsuits and environmental challenges have disrupted the warehouse initiative, halting or delaying conversion work at several locations. At properties in Maryland and Arizona, ICE had committed substantial renovation funding even as litigation put the projects on hold.
GAO has raised concerns about the planning behind the broader detention expansion and recommended a comprehensive strategy for estimating future capacity needs. Congress and federal officials also face questions about further security, maintenance and construction spending at properties ICE retains.
The scrutiny extends to detainee welfare. NPR's account, as described in the reporting, comes amid allegations of overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and insufficient medical care in ICE detention. As of earlier this week, 28 people had died in ICE custody in 2026; the agency reported 33 deaths in 2025, the highest annual total in two decades.
