Nicolai Haugsted
ICE’s guaranteed contracts leave taxpayers paying for empty jail cells.
Fresh scrutiny has fallen on the cost of the federal immigration detention system after newly released government data suggested taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for thousands of jail beds that are sitting vacant every night.
The figures, based on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention records analyzed by PunchUp, indicate the agency is spending more than $1.2 million per day on guaranteed detention capacity that is not being used.
According to The Daily Beast via. the analysis, ICE’s latest detention data—released on July 20 after going unpublished for three months—lists the minimum number of beds the government is contractually required to pay for regardless of occupancy.
Across seven detention facilities, roughly 8,200 of those guaranteed beds were reportedly unoccupied.
Camp East Montana, a tent detention complex at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, accounted for the largest share of the unused capacity. Taxpayers fund 5,000 beds at the site, yet average nightly occupancy during the current fiscal year was about 2,025 detainees.
Using an average detention cost of $152 per person per day, as estimated by the National Immigration Forum, the analysis concluded that maintaining those unused beds could cost taxpayers more than $450 million annually.
Private detention companies benefit
The report also highlighted the financial performance of private prison operator GEO Group, one of the companies involved in immigration detention contracts.
According to the analysis, the company’s profits climbed sharply from $32 million in 2024 to $254.4 million in 2025.
Speaking to investors earlier this year, GEO Group founder George Zoley said:
“This represents the largest amount of new business we have won in a single year in our company’s history.”
ICE published the detention figures on July 20 after they had not been publicly released for roughly three months.
Those records include each facility’s “guaranteed minimum” bed count—a contractual commitment requiring the government to pay for a fixed number of spaces whether they are occupied or not.
The newly available data has renewed attention on the overall cost of the immigration detention system as the federal government continues to finance thousands of beds that, according to the analysis, remain unused.
