| New reporting reveals that Washington swamp creature Madison Sheahan is at the center of yet another pricey scandal that cost taxpayers millions of dollars after she pushed through a massive order of branded ICE vehicles without verifying they could be used.
According to the Washington Examiner, ICE is now scrambling to fix Sheahan’s mess after she ordered 2,500 vehicles wrapped in large ICE logos and slogans – which are now sitting idle in parking garages because agents can’t use them.
This comes after Sheahan threatened to fire an ICE employee for proposing the agency find a cheaper contractor than the $100M choice of Kristi Noem.
Sheahan — who had no law-enforcement experience and was appointed to the job as a close ally of disgraced ex-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — reportedly pushed the order despite objections from career officials, leaving taxpayers stuck with the bill for a multimillion-dollar mistake.
Read the damning coverage for yourself:
Washington Examiner: 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.
- 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.
- Now, ICE is trying to figure out how to fix her mistake.
- “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.
- In the second half of 2025, Sheahan upgraded much of the workforce’s fleet from unmarked cars to marked ones, purchasing a couple of thousand vehicles.
- Sources said Noem and DHS special government employee Corey Lewandowski, who supported a flashy campaign to intimidate illegal immigrants in the United States into self-deporting, supported Sheahan’s plan.
- The order of 2,500 custom vehicles is the latest in a string of questionable expenditures by the DHS and its agencies over the past year, including hundreds of millions of dollars that the department put toward advertisements for illegal immigrants to self-deport.
Daily Beast: DHS Scrambling to Fix Multimillion-Dollar Mistake of ICE Barbie Deputy, 28
- ICE has acquired thousands of branded vehicles that are now just sitting in parking garages after Kristi Noem’s 28-year-old deputy ordered them without verifying they could be used.
- The bulk order was placed in the second half of 2025 by Madison Sheahan, 28. The then-deputy director was one of the closest allies of Noem—who was nicknamed ICE Barbie for her love of cosplaying on ICE raids—inside the agency.
- Sources have told the Daily Beast that Sheahan was the principal conduit for Noem and her senior aide and rumored lover Corey Lewandowski’s most contentious directives. “The power ran through her,” one ICE insider said. “She did all their bidding.”
- Staff were said to have been relieved when she departed the agency in January to launch a congressional campaign in Ohio.
- As the Beast reported in January, some ICE veterans were infuriated that someone with her limited law-enforcement experience was suddenly in command.
- The marked-vehicle order was not her only controversial decision. NBC News reported that Sheahan threatened the job of an ICE employee who proposed awarding a $100 million recruitment advertising contract to a cheaper rival than the firm Noem had already chosen.
- Sheahan told the employee the decision was “a decision made by the secretary,” then called him into her office and berated him until he backed down, three administration officials told NBC.
RawStory: ‘Ridiculous’: Kristi Noem’s 28-year-old aide wasted millions on unusable ICE vehicles
- A former deputy to outgoing Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem saddled the department with millions of dollars in wasted funding for vehicles that cannot be used.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are stashing away hundreds of pickup trucks and SUVs emblazoned with the agency’s name, logo and motto, which agents say will hinder their efforts to apprehend undocumented migrants.
- But former ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan placed a bulk order for clearly marked trucks that won’t be used.
- “I absolutely think I’m qualified for the job,” Sheahan said last year when questioned about her lack of credentials. “Because at the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job?”
- However, sources familiar with the plan say ICE career officials would not have approved of the purchase beforehand if they had been consulted, because driving identifiable vehicles goes against protocol.
- “It’s ridiculous because you don’t want to advertise what you’re doing,” the first person said. “We’re just hiding them in a parking garage somewhere because we don’t want to drive them. Who wants to drive the marked vehicles?”
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