March 9, 2026

GONE IN 60 SECONDS: Noem’s deputy director of ICE bought thousands of vehicles that officers can’t use.

A former Trump administration official wasted millions of taxpayer dollars given to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to purchase thousands of employee vehicles that the agency cannot use to arrest illegal immigrants, according to three sources.

ICE’s top brass are quietly searching for a way to amend the remainder of a massive order of pick-up trucks and SUVs that were ordered last year and slated to be wrapped with the agency’s name, logo, and motto, as well as storing away many vehicles that have been delivered to ICE facilities across the country, the Washington Examiner has learned.

“ICE has never had marked vehicles,” the first person familiar with the purchases said in a phone call. “In talking to people, they’re like, ‘We don’t want to use these, we can’t.’”

The saga is the latest controversial expenditure of taxpayer money within the Department of Homeland Security and speaks to the different ways political appointees at the department have tried to approach operations versus how career law enforcement officials have historically done so.

Over the past year, assaults against ICE personnel have risen 8,000%, according to the DHS, and federal police have opted to hide their faces and identities while working in public. They have frequently switched license plates on rental vehicles to avoid detection by activists, who track the license plate numbers of suspected ICE vehicles in massive crowdsourced databases.

Despite the growing number of ways ICE employees have sought to protect their identities, ICE’s former deputy director, Madison Sheahan, placed a bulk order for vehicles clearly marked with ICE’s logo.

Exit quote: “‘If leadership would have been consulted — leadership being the executive assistant directors, do you need marked vehicles, the people that have done this job would have said, ‘We don’t need marked vehicles, because you’re not going to use them,’ the first person said.”

UPDATE Why would ICE need unmarked cars? Oh, right:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll