WIRED: ICE leases office spaces in Irvine and Santa Ana

February 11, 2026

FEDERAL RECORDS OBTAINED by WIRED show that over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.

As first reported by Wired, ICE is moving into offices on the 2000 block of Main Street in Irvine, a larger building part of an office complex near a child care center, an Equinox gym and John Wayne Airport.

“This is news to me,” Irvine Mayor Larry Agran told the OC Register

“We try to maintain some channels of communication with Border Patrol, with ICE, with Homeland Security,” Agran said. “It’s not easy to do. They’re not very cooperative at all, and (not) letting us know what they’re planning, what their activities consist of.”

The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings and functions as the government’s internal IT department, is playing a critical role in this aggressive expansion. In numerous emails and memorandums viewed by WIRED, DHS asked GSA explicitly to disregard usual government lease procurement procedures and even hide lease listings due to “national security concerns” in an effort to support ICE’s immigration enforcement activities across the US.