The Department of Homeland Security spent $1 billion in taxpayer money last year to buy warehouses. But a new report claims that DHS overpaid for these properties, sometimes by as much as a thousand percent, and that the people who benefited were investors with close ties to President Donald Trump.
According to Mediaite, the report, based on data from activist group Project Salt Box, found that many of the warehouses had been sitting on the market for years before DHS stepped in to buy them. In some cases, those properties were carrying bank debt, which means the government’s purchase essentially paid off those loans for the owners.
Critics say this raises serious questions about whether these deals were made to benefit the president’s allies at the expense of American taxpayers. One example from the report involves a Pennsylvania property owned by Blue Owl Capital, which DHS bought at double its estimated market value.
The overpayments appear to go well beyond isolated cases
Blue Owl has direct ties to Trump, including a director who previously sat on the board of one of Trump’s companies. The firm also made large donations to Republican congressional groups. Goldman Sachs also comes up in the report, as the bank owned or controlled loans on some of the properties that DHS purchased.
Former Goldman employees, like former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have held roles in both of Trump’s administrations. While Goldman Sachs says it had no involvement in managing the portfolios, the report questions what role the bank played in the sales and whether it profited from them.
NEW: Multiple ICE warehouses were sold by people in Trump's circle who were sitting on the properties and losing money.
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 20, 2026
We dug into it, and found that some properties were bought by the feds for 10x their list price.
It's a new level of corruption — and you're paying for it. pic.twitter.com/MmUDL9kFsW
The president himself reportedly holds around $5 million in Blue Owl. On top of that, the report says at least 33 members of Trump’s administration have publicly reported investing in funds connected to Blue Owl or the agency that handles the purchasing deals. This is part of a broader pattern of concerns around how DHS spending connects to deportation planning that critics have been raising for months.
The warehouse program was paused after former DHS head Kristi Noem was removed from her position. But according to the report, Wall Street had already cashed in by then. More Perfect Union reporter Mae Ryan said, “the reality is that other Trump-connected individuals are already profiting off of ICE detention facilities with inhuman conditions.”
Looking ahead, the situation could grow much larger. The Department is set to spend $38 billion more on warehouses using funds from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. That has drawn sharp criticism from those who say it shows the administration is putting the interests of its allies ahead of the American public. Meanwhile, Trump’s influence continues to grow in other areas of government too, with lawmakers pushing to name a major highway after Trump as a show of political loyalty.
