How many ICE facility inspections were publicly posted each month in 2025, and which regions saw the steepest declines?
Executive summary
The public record does not provide a month-by-month tally of ICE facility inspection reports for 2025 that can be verified from the available sources; independent analysis shows a sharp overall drop in posted inspection reports in 2025, but none of the documents in this packet publish a strict monthly breakdown or a region-by-region comparison of posting rates [1] [2]. Project On Government Oversight (POGO) and partners calculated a 36.25% decline in inspection reports posted in 2025 versus 2024, and ICE’s own policy says reports are posted within 60 days of inspection — a practice that shapes how posted counts relate to inspection activity [1] [2].
1. What the user is actually asking and the limits of the record
The question seeks two discrete things — an exact monthly count of "publicly posted" ICE facility inspection reports for each month in 2025, and a geographic breakdown showing which regions experienced the steepest declines — but none of the supplied sources publish a verified month-by-month public log or a region-by-region posted-report analysis for 2025, so a precise monthly table and definitive regional ranking cannot be produced from these materials alone [2] [1].
2. The headline figure: overall collapse in posted inspections
Independent reporting by the Project On Government Oversight, using data pulled from ICE’s facility inspections pages, found a 36.25% decline in detention facility inspection reports published in 2025 compared with the prior year — a stark metric that captures the scale of reduced public posting even as detention numbers rose [1].
3. How ICE’s posting practice complicates monthly counts
ICE states that inspection reports are posted in chronological order within 60 days of inspection, meaning posted-date counts lag inspection dates and can cluster across months depending on when reports are finalized; that reporting rule makes simple "posted-per-month" snapshots an imperfect proxy for when oversight actually occurred [2].
4. What the oversight institutions found about inspections that were posted
While posted inspection report volume fell, the Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) reports continued to rate facilities as acceptable or above in the overwhelming majority of inspections referenced in GAO reporting, with 238 of 241 inspections rated acceptable or higher in the audit period GAO reviewed — a finding the GAO used to urge DHS to define goals and measures for inspection programs [3] [4].
5. Why regional declines can’t be proven from these sources — and where indicators point
None of the documents here provide a regional breakdown of posted-inspection counts for 2025, so it is not possible to definitively name which ICE regions saw the steepest declines in posted reports using only these sources [1] [2]. That said, contextual signals suggest where oversight pressure and detention expansion intersected: Vera’s detention dashboard documents a sprawling network of facilities and heavy regional activity through October 2025 that could be correlated with decreased public reporting in places with rapid expansion, and congressional and local oversight activity (e.g., visits and new contracts in the Chicago/Indiana and other Midwest operations) point to hotspots of detention growth that plausibly experienced the divergence between rising detentions and falling posted inspections [5] [6]. Those are suggestive correlations, not source-backed regional decline rankings.
6. Alternate explanations, agendas, and what would be needed to settle the question
Possible explanations for the decline in posted reports include fewer inspections actually conducted, delays or changes in posting practices, or strategic withholding; POGO’s analysis interprets the drop as a real reduction in published oversight [1], while ICE’s stated posting timeline and multi-entity inspection ecosystem (ODO, OIDO, OIG, contractor inspections) complicate attribution [2] [3]. Resolving the month-by-month counts and regional declines would require ICE’s raw inspection/posting dataset (with inspection date, posting date, facility, and ICE region) or independent month-resolved extracts like the one POGO drew on; those documents are not part of the current packet [1] [2].
7. Bottom line
Available reporting shows a 36.25% decline in ICE’s publicly posted detention facility inspection reports in 2025 versus 2024 and confirms ICE posts reports within 60 days of inspection, but the supplied sources do not include a verifiable month-by-month published-report count for 2025 nor a region-by-region comparison of declines — any definitive monthly table or regional ranking would require ICE’s underlying posting log or the complete dataset POGO used [1] [2] [3].