Indianapolis, IN — Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it has entered into an agreement with Indiana to detain up to 1,000 people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at the Miami Correctional Facility, a maximum security state prison north of Indianapolis. Modeled after the agreement for the Everglades detention camp in Florida, this is the second major detention agreement between ICE and a state government to expand immigration detention capacity purportedly through the use of the 287(g) program. The maximum security prison is located on the former Grissom Air Force Base. This news comes within weeks of the Department of Defense (DOD) sending Congress notice of plans to use Camp Atterbury, a 34,000-acre National Guard military post that is also in Indiana, for immigration detention of at least 1,000 people.
Prior to 2025, ICE only detained individuals at one facility in Indiana. This facility - Clay County Jail located in Brazil, Indiana - began detaining individuals through a U.S. Marshals contract in 2006 but typically only held between 50-60 detained individuals for ICE at a time. However, in 2022, Clay County officials signed off on a costly project to expand the number of beds they have for ICE by 170 percent; the physical expansion opened in spring 2024 and now ICE holds hundreds of noncitizens there at a time. In the last year, Clay County Jail became the facility holding the most individuals for ICE in the Midwest, despite a pending lawsuit against ICE challenging its detention inspection process that turned a blind eye to substandard conditions in Clay County Jail. Despite this, in March 2025, the Marion County Jail in Indianapolis began detaining a few dozen individuals in ICE custody under that facility’s Marshals contract.
The addition of the Miami Correctional Facility and Camp Atterbury will exponentially increase ICE’s capacity to detain individuals in Indiana, showing a growing pattern of state and local complicity. The use of these two facilities also has the potential to establish Indiana as a new regional hub for ICE detention, which could staggeringly change ICE’s pattern of enforcement in the entire midwest. According to DHS, the Indiana agreement is a direct result of the MAGA-backed megabill passed by Congress last month, which provides a shocking $170 billion for immigration detention and militarization – the targeting, detention, and deportation of people – including $45 billion for ICE to detain families and adults at the expense of vital programs for all Americans.
Communities throughout the region have long fought ICE’s attempts to expand operations in the Midwest. Illinois successfully passed the Illinois Way Forward Act which went into effect on January 1, 2022 and prevented Illinois jails and correctional facilities from detaining individuals in ICE custody. Many other states have passed similar laws. At this critical juncture, the Communities Not Cages Indiana Coalition urges Indiana residents and allies to sign and share this petition to urge elected officials to reverse plans and halt detention expansion.
Local and national immigrant justice advocates issued the following statements:
Sayra Perez, Organizer at The Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance, said: “Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance (IUYA) stands firmly against this latest expansion of immigration detention in our state. We know that our communities thrive not through punishment and incarceration, but through investment in education, healthcare, and opportunity. The decision to increase ICE detentions through the Miami Correctional Facility “Speedway Slammer” and Camp Atterbury deepens Indiana’s complicity in a system that tears families apart and inflicts long-term harm. Our state’s growing role in ICE’s detention and deportation machine is a direct attack on immigrant Hoosiers—our coworkers, students and neighbors. We urge elected officials at every level to reject this cruel expansion and instead stand with our communities in calling for dignity and compassion, not detention.”
Wendy Catalan, organizer with Cosecha Indiana, said: “Cosecha Indiana is a nonviolent movement fighting for the permanent protection, dignity, and respect of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Cosecha Indiana, along with our community, is being surveilled, attacked, and left out of the conversations that affect us most. While immigration policy decisions are being made hastily—without respect, without dignity—we are organizing. Cosecha Indiana, along with its allies, stands firmly against the separation of our families. We are workers, parents, students, teachers, and neighbors in solidarity with our communities. We demand protection, not detention, for our families who have suffered firsthand the consequences of harsh immigration policies. Collaboration with ICE does not increase our safety and does not represent the values of Hoosier hospitality, values that prioritize caring for one another.”
Hannah Cartwright, attorney at Mariposa Legal, said: “The number of ICE arrests in Indiana have already increased by 80 percent in the first six months of 2025. The use of the “Speedway Slammer” and Camp Atterbury will further drastically increase ICE’s ability to prey on Hoosier immigrant communities. The inevitable increase in the number of Hoosier immigrants detained will further put pressure on legal service providers as well as the Chicago and Indianapolis Immigration Courts to adjudicate cases, despite the fact that many immigration judges have either resigned or been fired since March. As a result, the Trump Administration is effectively eliminating due process for Hoosier immigrants as a practical matter and further entrenching a mass deportation system in the midwest.”
Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, said: “The Trump administration is propelling its cruel mass detention and deportation agenda to an unthinkable scope and scale. Trump’s explosive growth of immigration detention - cosigned and enabled by Congress’s megabill - is abhorrent, and is exacerbating inhumane conditions, with increasing reports of death, medical neglect, overcrowding, lack of food, and rampant transfers that cut people off from their loved ones and support networks. Further alarming is the administration’s communications tactic of mocking slogans with the clear intention to dehumanize immigrants and normalize tearing people apart from their loved ones, locking them up, subjecting them to abuse, and isolating them from family and friends – sometimes forever. The administration is growing its partnership with Governors who prefer detention centers and prisons in their communities at all costs over investments in housing, healthcare, and pressing local community needs. Is this what we want to see for our children and families? People across the country have answered by uniting to protect their family members, neighbors, and friends, demanding to shut down detention centers and halt detention expansion – it’s far past time for our elected leaders to hear us and reject the mass detention and deportation agenda.”
Margaret Hass, President of Greater Lafayette Immigrant Allies, said: “Greater Lafayette Immigrant Allies stands in unequivocal opposition to the expansion of immigrant detention in Indiana at Camp Atterbury and Miami Correctional Facility. As a community organization that educates, advocates, and stands in solidarity with immigrants in our region, we believe that everyone–whatever their national origin, language, or immigration status–deserves freedom and dignity. Yet powerful interests, from politicians seeking political advantage to private prison companies, are trying to divide our communities by dramatically expanding immigration detention in our state. Imprisoning immigrants, whether it is in county jails, state prisons, or open-air camps, serves only to isolate and harm vulnerable people, hurting their families and communities. True investment in Indiana means creating opportunities for everyone to thrive, not profiting off the punishment of people. As more and more Hoosiers speak up against the injustices of this immigration system, we can create a state that truly works–for ALL of us, no exceptions.”
Robin Valenzuela, Miguel Avila, Brian Bither, Whitney Guthrie, Judy Mae Foszcz, members of Indiana AID’s Coordinating Committee, said: “Indiana AID (Assistance to Immigrants in Detention) is a volunteer group that supports individuals detained by ICE in Indiana by bearing witness to their experiences through visits, offering information, and providing resources to them and their families. Since its inception, Indiana AID has supported thousands of individuals held in the ICE immigration detention system. In just 2025 alone, Indiana AID has interacted with hundreds of immigrants who are mothers and fathers, business owners and professors, people of various faiths, community leaders, and individuals from all walks of life. Immigration detention not only upends their lives, it leaves a terrible hole in the lives of their loved ones and their communities. We've partnered with individuals who were shunted from one detention facility to another for months and even years; we've seen individuals who've requested self-removal and yet remain stalled in detention for months upon end with no updates; and we've had the devastating experience of witnessing cases where someone was murdered after being denied asylum and deported back to the country they had fled. We state strongly that Indiana should not detain ANY immigrants, let alone at the scale Governor Braun is proposing. Resources are already overstretched in providing material and emotional support to immigrants experiencing detention and in ensuring that the jails meet the basic needs of the human beings in them. We are strongly opposed to the expansion of ICE in Indiana.”
Lisa Koop, National Director of Legal Services at the National Immigrant Justice Center (“NIJC”) said: "NIJC maintains two offices in Indiana and is proud to serve Hoosier immigrants in our community. The dramatic expansion of immigration detention in Indiana is a betrayal of our Hoosier values and exposes a deep misapprehension of the immigration system. Giving immigration jails alliterated names and using garish marketing ploys only highlights how state and federal officials have ceased to see the humanity in the people they are detaining. It is shameful. NIJC commits to opposing this inhumane expansion of the detention system and seeking justice for all Hoosier immigrants impacted by abusive enforcement operations."
Sandra Garza, Founder of Fuerza Unida, said: “Fuerza Unida is a grassroots Latino-led organization based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, dedicated to advancing mental health, rights awareness, civic engagement, and community-led advocacy on behalf of the Latino community. We uplift the voices of those most impacted—not those in power. Indiana is putting a price tag on immigrant lives. These families are not threats or statistics to be locked up for profit or political gain. Turning our state into a detention hub will inflict deep, unnecessary trauma on people who are simply seeking safety and a chance to live. Immigrants are the backbone of our economy and deserve protection—not punishment. This is cruelty, plain and simple and it does not reflect Hoosier values. You were elected to serve the people, not kiss the ring. Your constituents agree: things must change, but not like this. Humane, community-centered solutions exist—yet you’ve chosen cruelty. And let this be clear. If you choose complicity now, the demands will only grow more inhumane. The line will continue to shift. There will come a point when silence is no longer survival, but surrender. Every time you stay silent, you help build the very system that will come for someone you love next.”
Rafael Manzo Jr, Founder and President of More Action for Students, said: “More Action for Students is based in Northwest Indiana. We work to empower marginalized youth by helping them pursue higher education and achieve their goals. Another core pillar of our organization is promoting civic engagement. Encouraging participation is becoming increasingly difficult because many people are afraid. They fear being traced back to their undocumented families. This is not governance — this is terror. Northwest Indiana has one of the highest concentrations of immigrants in the state. We strongly condemn the proposal to build a detention center here. We know it will be modeled after the horrific, human-rights-violating facility known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ We call on the state to stop terrorizing and racially profiling Hispanic communities across Indiana. We’ve witnessed multiple incidents of law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) harassing and terrorizing innocent people. This must end.”
Lita Rouser, Cass County Democrat Chair, said: “Turning Indiana into a hub for mass immigrant detention is a moral failure. Detaining people without due process does nothing to make us safer, and making us ‘safer’ was the campaign promise that got us here. State leaders are proud of Indiana's business climate. How can they possibly not see this as a sucker punch to economic development plans and our state's appeal to businesses shopping for corporate homes. Any business wanting to compete on the international stage has to lead with equity and respect, not mass incarceration. Most Hoosiers are people of faith. They can’t possibly believe this echoes the heart of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount when he said, ’Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.’ What’s at risk? The foundations of our justice system and the basic human rights protected by the US Constitution. We must reject this vision of Indiana, this pipeline for fear and cruelty. Our state should stand for justice, compassion and human dignity, not cages and deportation quotas. We call on all Hoosiers to oppose these ICE facilities and stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. Indiana must not be the Midwest’s epicenter of mass incarceration and hate. Our values demand more than this. We’re writing our future with every choice. Choose the path that honors Indiana’s moral compass.”
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