Congress and the Department of Homeland Security enter Friday still without a clean DHS funding deal that would force Immigration and Customs Enforcement to finish the detention-expansion plan GAO demanded after finding millions in waste. GAO-26-108663, covered by Axios, CBS News, and Senate Judiciary Democrats’ distribution of the report, says ICE scaled back four of six expansion initiatives and booked at least about $20 million in unrecoverable warehouse costs while lacking goals, activities, and resource needs. DHS has said ICE will finish a plan by August 31, 2027 — a date appropriators have not yet locked into must-pass text.

Democrats want amendments that tie new detention dollars to the GAO plan; hard-line Republicans want capacity first and treat the watchdog language as bureaucratic delay. Multi-year ICE funding already on the books — tens of billions for detention through FY2029 — keeps the stakes high even without a same-week floor deal. Overnight late-night scroll found no ≥2-outlet confirmation of a clean deal or adopted GAO-plan amendment, so the process card carries.

Backstory: GAO’s September 24 report landed as ICE raced to expand beds under Trump second-term enforcement targets. This is a funding-and-oversight story, not a new raid tally. Watch Senate and House DHS minibuses, any manager’s amendment text naming GAO-26-108663, and ICE’s next public plan milestone.

GAO’s August 2027 plan date is far enough out that appropriators could still attach interim reporting milestones in a December continuing resolution. Detention contractors and local governments hosting new beds are watching whether Congress freezes expansion dollars. Oversight Democrats want public milestones; enforcement hawks want bed counts first and paperwork second.