TOLEDO, Ohio — At 28 years old, Madison Dean Sheahan had never worked a day in law enforcement. She had been a political aide and Republican Party operative in South Dakota, and a Louisiana state wildlife administrator. Then Kristi Noem handed her the No. 2 job at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — an agency with 20,000 employees and a $9 billion annual budget — and the results, multiple sources say, are now parked in garages across the country.

Sheahan, now 29, served as ICE deputy director from March 2025 until her resignation in January 2026, when she returned to Ohio to challenge 22-term Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in the 9th Congressional District. She is now running on that record, describing herself as a proven executive who helped lead a historic immigration enforcement surge under President Donald Trump.

The record she left behind tells a more complicated story — one involving thousands of unusable taxpayer-funded vehicles, a pattern of contracting that bypassed federal competitive bidding requirements, and an agency whose career officers, according to multiple sources, were relieved to see her go.

A political résumé handed a law enforcement agency

Before Noem installed her at ICE, Sheahan’s professional background was entirely in Republican political operations. She worked as Noem’s political director while Noem was governor of South Dakota, served as executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party, and spent a year as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries under Noem ally Gov. Jeff Landry.

She graduated from Ohio State University in 2019 with a degree in public affairs. She had never led a law enforcement agency, managed federal officers, or overseen criminal investigations of any kind. Noem installed her anyway, putting her in charge of day-to-day operations for one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies in the country, including more than 6,800 criminal investigators and 6,000 enforcement and removal officers.

When her qualifications were questioned during her tenure, Sheahan offered a notable defense. “I absolutely think I’m qualified for the job,” she told reporters. “Because at the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job?“

2,500 vehicles no one can drive

In the second half of 2025, Sheahan ordered approximately 2,500 pickup trucks and SUVs outfitted with dark navy paint, gold ICE lettering, and the motto “Defend the Homeland” — the first marked vehicles in the agency’s history since its 2003 founding, according to the Washington Examiner, which cited three sources familiar with the purchases.

The problem, career officers say, is that the vehicles are operationally useless for the work ICE actually does.

“ICE has never had marked vehicles,” one person familiar with the purchases told the Examiner. “In talking to people, they’re like, ‘We don’t want to use these, we can’t.’”

ICE’s enforcement model depends on agents working without advertising their presence. The marked vehicles make covert field operations impossible — immediately tipping off anyone nearby that federal agents are in the area. Career leaders say they were not consulted before the order was placed.

“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,’” one source told the Examiner.

The vehicles are now in storage. In one California city, approximately 25 branded cars were delivered and immediately redirected to a nearby detention center, where they remain parked, the Daily Beast reported. Others are being stored in parking garages or used only for custodial pickups from jails — the narrow category of operation where marked vehicles do not compromise enforcement.

“It’s ridiculous because you don’t want to advertise what you’re doing,” one source told the Examiner. “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?”

The total cost of the order has not been made public. ICE did not respond to requests for comment on the number of vehicles purchased, the full cost of the order, or whether Sheahan consulted career officers before placing it. Sheahan also did not respond. Since her departure, ICE headquarters has been working to amend the outstanding portion of the fleet order so that remaining undelivered vehicles arrive without agency branding.

No-bid contracts and a threatened employee

The vehicle order was not the only procurement decision during Sheahan’s tenure to attract scrutiny.

NBC News reported, based on three administration officials and internal communications it reviewed, that Noem handpicked contractors to run a $100 million ICE recruitment advertising campaign without allowing competitive bidding — a standard requirement for federal contracts of that size.

According to those officials, when an ICE employee suggested the contract go to a cheaper competitor, Sheahan told him the award was “a decision made by the secretary,” then called him into her office and berated him until he backed down. The contract was subsequently awarded to the firms Noem had already chosen.

That $100 million campaign — like the fleet order — was awarded without competitive bidding. It went to People Who Think and Safe America Media, the same contractors behind a separate $220 million self-deportation advertising blitz that became a central issue at Noem’s Senate testimony and a contributing factor in her dismissal. Trump announced she would leave office effective March 31.

Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak subsequently reported that Sheahan directed a second contract to the same firms, and described the overall contracting pattern at DHS as “extremely bad, possibly criminal.”

A separate $2.25 million contract to outfit 25 Chevrolet Tahoes with ICE branding was awarded without competitive bidding to Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports in North Carolina and a prominent Republican donor. Three additional companies received between $174,000 and $230,000 to wrap the vehicles in the new markings.

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, had proposed an amendment that would have directed a portion of ICE funding toward congressional oversight of its spending. It was voted down. “Federal funds are not abstract. They’re not theoretical numbers,” McBath said in a statement. “Taxpayers expect to see how their hard-earned money is being spent."

"The power ran through her”

Sources who spoke with the Daily Beast described Sheahan as the principal conduit for Noem and senior DHS aide Corey Lewandowski’s most contested directives inside the agency. “The power ran through her,” one ICE insider said. “She did all their bidding.”

Staff were described as relieved when she left in January. Career ICE veterans had been frustrated from the start — “most feared her because she had many employees reassigned, but few respected her,” one source told the Daily Mail.

Now running for Congress — and already under fire from her own party

Sheahan is running in a crowded Republican primary that also includes former state Rep. Derek Merrin, who narrowly lost to Kaptur in 2024, and state Rep. Josh Williams. The Cook Political Report currently rates the seat a toss-up. Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the race.

On the campaign trail, Sheahan has centered her pitch on her record at ICE. “In just one year, we’ve made history, recruiting 12,000 new ICE officers and agents, and deporting over 2.5 million illegal aliens,” she said in her campaign launch video. Her announcement did not address the controversies surrounding her tenure.

But the Republican primary has already taken an ugly turn. As TiffinOhio.net reported in January, self-identified MAGA accounts on X began making baseless claims about Sheahan’s gender and dragging State Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) into the fray. Click, a Baptist pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ legislative record, became the target of online suggestions that he should “inspect” Sheahan — an escalation that illustrated the conspiratorial fringes now active in the district’s Republican base.

Click himself called her campaign “crazy” in a recent interview with Ohio political blog The Rooster, a position believed to reflect his backing of Williams, Sheahan’s primary rival.

The Kaptur campaign has made clear it intends to prosecute the contrast. “Voters are tired of the self-dealing corruption and culture of lawlessness they’ve seen over the last year,” a campaign spokesperson said. “They want a leader focused on affordability and real results, and Marcy Kaptur consistently works across the aisle to deliver both.”

Sheahan did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner, the Daily Beast, or this outlet prior to publication.