WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog has paused an ongoing audit of no-bid contracts due to the continuing shutdown of funding to the agency, as well as reviews of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities and instances of possible use of excessive force in immigration enforcement, according to a DHS official and an administration official.
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Other DHS inspector general reviews that have been put on hold because of the shutdown include four inquiries of the Secret Service’s response to the July 2024 assassination attempt of President Donald Trump, ICE’s progress in finding and checking on the safety of immigrant children who entered the United States unaccompanied, and a review of Homeland Security Investigations’ efforts to combat the spread of fentanyl across U.S. borders.
Overall, roughly 85% of the audits by the DHS inspector general are on pause, according to a statement from the inspector general’s office to NBC News.
The pause in internal oversight at DHS is a previously unreported consequence of the partial government shutdown that has halted funding to the agency and is now entering its eighth week with little indication that it will end soon. It comes as arrests by ICE continue amid the shutdown, in part due to the agency’s $75 billion infusion by a sweeping tax and spending bill Trump signed last year.
The Trump administration’s mass deportation policies have sparked civil rights concerns and drawn increased scrutiny of how DHS has awarded no-bid contracts worth millions of dollars. Democrats continue to push for changes in immigration enforcement tactics in exchange for agreeing to end the shutdown and fund DHS.
The DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, is one of the few Cabinet-level inspectors general who was not fired in the days after Trump took office last year.
A spokesperson for the inspector general’s office said in the statement that the office “will maximize the utility of any resources afforded to us in our work to provide independent oversight of DHS programs and operations.”
The spokesperson also said that 60% of its workforce has been furloughed. Those who remain include special agents conducting criminal investigations and those whose work is funded by sources other than the office’s annual appropriations, such as Federal Emergency Management Agency-related work or work funded by the Disaster Relief Fund.
ICE detention facilities and immigration enforcement tactics are both issues that congressional Democrats have said should undergo changes and be subject to more transparency after complaints from immigration attorneys and some lawmakers of deteriorating conditions in the detention facilities and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January.
No-bid contracts at DHS have come under increased scrutiny since last month, when former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced questions from lawmakers during a congressional hearing about her and her former senior adviser Corey Lewandowski’s role in contracting decisions.
Ongoing criminal investigations by the inspector general, including an inquiry into a $220 million DHS advertising campaign featuring Noem and a wider range of contracts that was previously reported by NBC News, continue, according to the administration official. The investigators working on those probes are not being paid during the shutdown, the official said.
The DHS inspector general’s office confirmed it has told Congress it is currently managing 650 investigations, 60 audits and 20 inspections and receives more than 20,000 complaints per year.
The latest White House budget proposal calls for a $22 million cut to the DHS inspector general.
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