(EL PASO, TEXAS) — The U.S. Government Accountability Office released report GAO-26-108886 on June 9, 2026, finding that Camp East Montana at the Fort Bliss Army base wasted millions of dollars and exposed detainees to serious safety and health risks. The report examined the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, which opened after expedited construction and contracting.

GAO said the government spent at least $11.5 million on unused meals and services at Camp East Montana. It cited one example in which the government paid for meals at the site’s full 5,000-person capacity even when the facility was empty or held about 1,600 people.

Investigators also documented two deaths in January 2026, including the homicide of Geraldo Lunas Campos and a suicide after a detainee was left unattended longer than required 15-minute intervals. The report said evidence in the homicide case was “missing or destroyed.”

Camp East Montana opened in August 2025 on the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, with space for 5,000 detainees. People held there lived in steel-framed, tent-like structures, according to the report.

The facility was built as detention capacity expanded more broadly, and the findings landed the same day House Republicans passed a funding bill providing $38 billion for ICE, triple its previous annual budget. Camp East Montana had been positioned as a centerpiece of that expansion.

GAO traced the project’s early problems to a contracting process that moved quickly. The Army awarded a $1.3 billion contract to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small firm with no prior detention services experience.

ICE then terminated that contract for convenience in April 2026 and awarded a new $453 million contract to Amentum Services. The contractor switch came after months of operational and oversight problems at the site.

Those problems went beyond spending. A security guard lost a loaded firearm inside the facility in January 2026, and the weapon had not been recovered as of March 2026, the report found.

Medical care also failed in basic ways. GAO inspectors found detainees with chronic conditions including HIV and diabetes had no treatment plans in place.

The report described unsanitary conditions and inadequate screening for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. It also found high-risk and low-risk detainees were housed together, while the facility lacked enough surveillance cameras to monitor what happened inside.

Legal access lagged as well. Camp East Montana initially lacked space for attorney and family visitation, limiting contact for people held there while their immigration cases moved forward.

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said the report showed a “dangerous and irresponsible” campaign. The criticism centered on a facility that opened without perimeter cameras, outdoor recreation space, or visitation areas.

The Department of Homeland Security defended the contractor transition on June 10, 2026. “This new contractor [Amentum Services] will allow Camp East Montana to continue abiding by the highest detention standards WITH the ability to provide MORE medical care on-site. This contract also allows more on-site staff and a PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan. ICE will have even more oversight of the contractors at this facility.”

ICE issued a separate statement on June 10, 2026. “ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”

Days before the GAO report became public, Acting Director David Venturella updated ICE policy on death reporting in an internal memo dated June 5, 2026. Venturella wrote that the agency would no longer report deaths that occur within 30 days of a person’s release, returning to “the standard practice of reporting deaths that occur while an individual is in agency custody.”

The GAO findings sharpen scrutiny of a detention site that combined a military base setting, a fast construction timeline and a large detainee population. At Camp East Montana, the report linked those choices to unused spending, gaps in medical care, weak security controls and failures in daily supervision.

People trying to read the government record can start with the [GAO report](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108886), which lays out the timeline, contracts and inspection findings under the title Immigration Detention: Waste and Performance Issues at Camp East Montana. Congressional reaction appears in a [statement from Durbin and Representative Bennie Thompson](https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases), while agency responses appear through the [DHS newsroom](https://www.dhs.gov/news) and the [ICE newsroom](https://www.ice.gov/news).

By the time GAO-26-108886 was released, Camp East Montana had already become a test case for what happens when detention capacity rises faster than oversight. The report’s most persistent image is not the site’s scale at the Fort Bliss Army base, but a facility built for 5,000 that still lost track of meals, medicine, evidence and a loaded gun.