Over the past several weeks, Trump immigration officials have been prospecting for empty warehouses to retrofit as “mega” detention centers for the tens of thousands caught up in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation dragnet. The lucrative deals to acquire the warehouses are being quietly facilitated by a handful of powerful, politically connected real estate brokers — including one with financial ties to Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick.

Outcry over these deals has focused largely on the warehouse owners — some of whom have backed out after public pressure and, in at least one case, claimed they were unaware of the prospective buyer’s identity. But these multimillion-dollar deals are handled directly by real estate brokers, who promote properties and close sales.

The payoff for the sales agents, who collect commissions on each deal, could potentially be worth millions of dollars, supplying the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, with highly sought-after infrastructure while bailing out the commercial real estate owners, who have struggled to sell their properties over the past year under the weight of macroeconomic headwinds and Trump’s tariff war.