The Department of Homeland Security spent millions in taxpayer funds to purchase property for warehouses owned by investors with close ties to President Donald Trump, a new report claims.

DHS spent $1 billion in 2026 to buy warehouses to house detained immigrants. In multiple cases, the Department paid a price far higher than a warehouse’s market valuation, often on properties that had been up for sale for years, data from activist group Project Salt Box showed. Some of these properties were financed with bank debt, meaning their purchase equated to those loans being paid off.

“In other words, some of these warehouse sales are effectively acting as a vehicle for these institutions to sell off otherwise distressed assets and profit from taxpayer-funded investment,” a report on the data from More Perfect Union reads.

The report gives multiple specific examples of instances where DHS paid up to a thousand percent markup on warehouses, including one Pennsylvania property bought at double the estimated market value owned by Blue Owl Capital. The investment company gave large donations to Republican congressional groups, while one of its directors was previously on the board of one of Trump’s companies.

“ICE didn’t necessarily want to be using warehouses,” said Salt Box’s Michael Wriston. “The plan came from folks very close to the White House who were sitting on properties that were causing them losses every year, and the decision was to buy them at taxpayer expense.”

More Perfect Union cites at least thirty-three members of the president’s administration who publicly reported investing in the funds under Blue Owl or the agency that brokers the purchasing deals, with the president himself owning around $5 million in Blue Owl.

Blue Owl did not respond to the organization’s request for comment.

Goldman Sachs also owned or controlled loans for properties purchased by DHS, including one that the bank refinanced only months before its sale to the department. Former employees of Goldman, like former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have frequently held roles in both of Trump’s administrations.

“As a lender, we are not involved in the operations and management of the portfolios of assets we lend to. Those decisions are made by the owners of those assets,” a Goldman Sachs representative told More Perfect Union. “We are also not involved with the sales process of individual assets and would not share in the profit of an asset’s sale if there were one.”

The report also noted similar instances from Trump lender Deutsche Bank, which declined to give a comment on the report.

More Perfect Union reporter Mae Ryan added that, though the warehouse program was paused after former DHS head Kristi Noem’s ouster, the benefit to investors was already a reality.

“Even though these warehouses haven’t been converted yet, Wall Street institutions have already cashed in,” she said. “And the reality is that other Trump-connected individuals are already profiting off of ICE detention facilities with inhuman conditions.”

According to a document sent to the governor of New Hampshire and reported on by The Guardian, the Department is set to spend $38 billion on warehouses, using funds appropriated by Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

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