ICE is struggling to detain more people despite a huge influx of money. And officials are blaming one man

[BumRushDaShow]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by GP6971 (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Independent

Tuesday 07 October 2025 09:58 BST


Current and former officials are reportedly frustrated that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency hasn’t been able to arrest and detain more people in recent months, despite ICE getting an unprecedented $45 billion in new funding to expand its detention capacities as part of the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” spending package in July.

The average number of migrants in custody per day has barely grown since the infusion of funding, while immigration arrests have fallen 11 percent since June and remain well below the administration’s reported 3,000-person-per-day goal, though deportations have tripled overall since January.

“There’s extreme frustration that the president’s agenda — when it comes to ICE beds, and therefore deportations — is not going to happen,” a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee told The Atlantic, which reported on the alleged internal tensions.

“The White House worked for months to get the reconciliation bill over the finish line. Why did you just lobby Congress for months saying you needed the money if you don’t intend to spend it?”

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-funding-detention-corey-lewandowski-b2840533.html

---

Why did you just lobby Congress for months saying you needed the money if you don’t intend to spend it?”

Waste. Fraud. Abuse. - the answer.

[enough]

1. You're right BRDS, waste fraud abuse is the answer.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Trump, brilliant negotiator and business analyst

Just ask caroLYING levity. But. I digress. Trump, liar, hater, racist, convicted felon, Thief, failed human being and PROUD LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

[FSogol]

3. Grifters gotta Grift!

[sop]

4. Lewandowski and Homan are grifting, holding out for the most lucrative contract kickbacks.

“We are asking all vendors to provide the best value,” Lewandowski told the magazine of his negotiations with detention contractors. “They’ve all come back and said, ‘You know what? We can do better. We can do better because we understand.’”

[SergeStorms]

20. Oh, they understand alright.

They understand that the Treasury doors are wide open to help themselves to our tax dollars. 😠

[William Seger]

5. The "immigrant crime wave" LIE fell appart when they couldn't come up with nearly enough criminals

... to satisfy their mass deportation promises, so they just started grabbing immigrants wherever they could find them, even ones who had lived here peacefully and productively for decades. When that still wasn't enough, they started literally grabbing them out of courts after revoking their legal status when they showed up to continue their asylum process. And now, they're raiding entire apartment buildings, detaining every resident until they can prove they're not illegal immigrants. Yet, they still can't make their daily quota, because the quota is based on LIES by a racist, fascist demagogue.

[travelingthrulife]

16. Unfortunately it is alive and well with MAGA robots.

[Bobstandard]

6. It takes time to decide which oligarch gets to loot it

Clearly someone gets to rake off a portion of this money. It’s not easy deciding whether Musk, or Zuck, Thiel or some other Trumpist with a Mar A Lago membership gets the nod. Details of the kickbacks are tough also. Patience Democrats!

[angrychair]

7. We haven't got their yet

They could do just as they wish but it would require a level of commitment to the bit only a few have shown (Stephen Miller or Tom Homan or Pam Bondi as an example).
It would require significant escalation and mass arrest that dwarf anything they are doing now and require mass arrest of hundreds of thousands of Americans as well.
To do what they want to do would irrevocable break the country.
Hopefully they don't actually try it.

[rubbersole]

9. When, not if, tsf invokes the Insurrection Act it'll be game on.

Patriotic Americans will rise up and resist. Chaos will temporarily rule. What comes next will determine what kind of country our children will have. Let's get it over with while these incompetent nazis are making their play. They are following the project 2025 outline. Their success so far is because the oligarch owned media isn't covering it. Wait until the economy collapses. Pitchforks will prevail. It may take a decade. There aren't enough magat proud boys to repress the American people.

[maxsolomon]

8. In case you're wondering, the article names Corey Lewandowski

as the "one man" who's blamed, but only in the caption of a photograph.

Pretty bad article.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. The Independent article is referencing an article from The Atlantic

As Money Rushed In, ICE’s Rapid Expansion Stalled Out

By Nick Miroff

October 6, 2025, 10:37 AM ET


Few provisions in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act were as thrilling to immigration hard-liners as the $45 billion it provided to supersize the ICE detention system. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had long complained that a lack of jail space constrained their ability to deport more people. The bill gave ICE enough money to nearly triple its detention capacity to more than 100,000 beds—a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” the White House called it.

But in the three months since the bill was signed, the agency has added little to that capacity. The lack of beds may be limiting ICE’s ability to expand its enforcement; the number of arrests it’s made peaked in June and has declined in the months since. The agency’s focus on partnerships with state governments has done little to add capacity, despite driving up costs. And overcrowding has worsened in short-term holding cells at ICE processing centers, where detainees, attorneys, and immigrant advocates report abysmal conditions.

Lawmakers who visited the Baltimore center in August said detainees were spending as long as eight days in bare-bones cells designed for 12-hour stays. In Georgia, Virginia, and California, attorneys say immigrants have been forced to sleep on concrete floors without showers or bedding for days. Last month, a district court judge in New York City ordered immediate improvements to the processing center at a federal building in Lower Manhattan, where secretly recorded videos showed packed holding cells and men sleeping beside toilets. The lack of detention space has slowed Trump’s immigration crackdown at a moment when it was primed to accelerate.

From January to June, the average number of detainees per day in ICE custody rose 43 percent, to more than 57,000. But since July, when the funding was approved, the detainee population has increased only about 5 percent, to roughly 60,000, the latest statistics show. The stream of social-media clips showing masked federal agents kicking down doors, raiding Home Depot parking lots, and pulling people from their car have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign. ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer.

(snip)

No paywall (gift)

[mwmisses4289]

11. It seemed to me they were blaming both t and lewandoski.

[maxsolomon]

12. the headline says "one man".

that it's confusing who that is means its a crap article.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. From the above-linked "The Atlantic" article -

(snip)

Eight current and former officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security told me that they blame Corey Lewandowski, the longtime Trump-world figure who is a “special government employee” at DHS and functions as the unofficial chief of staff to Secretary Kristi Noem.[/b] Lewandowski has operated as a gatekeeper for Noem, especially since June, when the department implemented a new policy requiring her to sign off on any contract exceeding $100,000.

(snip)

"One man".

[maxsolomon]

17. Is that paragraph in the Independent article?

I don't see it. I see the answer to the teaser in the headline in the photo caption only.

Yes, I see the hyperlink to the Atlantic article. I'm not saying the Atlantic article is bad.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "The Atlantic" did a lengthy "feature" piece

and "The Independent" was summarizing it as a "news report".

The "gist" is something that we pretty much know - the whole ICE effort is a boondoggle and you have people like Lewindowski who are at the center of that mess outside of his "girlfriend" doing "reality show" preening and hyperventilating appearances (like Miller has his bullshit "focus" on every draconian thing under the sun and Navarro is the "tariff monster" ).

[The Madcap]

13. Watch for trenches in the desert

Much cheaper than buying beds, and they get to keep the money for themselves.

[BattleRow]

15. Like in "Casino"?

[popsdenver]

18. I am sure

the L.A. Police could give ICE a long list of Mexican Gang Members operating in certain areas of the city.............

The reason that ICE goes after Home Depot's and groups of agricultural hard working Mexicans, is because unlike the Home Depot, etc Mexicans, ....................Mexican Gangs WILL SHOOT BACK............

Same with Washington DC, Chicago, etc etc etc

[poli-junkie]

21. Plus they want to destroy the economy

[relayerbob]

22. Oh, they spent it all right

[GP6971]

23. Locking per Host Consensus. Not LBN...Feature Article