Washington, DC — Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda has reached a previously unimaginable scope and scale. Last week, a Washington Post report revealed what advocates have been calling attention to for months: with the shocking infusion of funding from the MAGA-backed megabill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to double its detention capacity by the end of this year to detain nearly 110,000 people. To put this into perspective, Texas alone will have the capacity to detain at least 37,000 people, more than the entire detention system’s funded capacity for 10 of the last 15 years.
Data compiled by Detention Watch Network shows that since January, ICE has initiated detention contracts with at least 45 new facilities, and an additional 43 facilities that are now detaining people for ICE after not doing so for years.
Among these new contracts and facilities, Detention Watch Network noted the following alarming patterns:
State governors are proactively offering active and shuttered state prisons or state-run detention camps for immigration detention, including:
- Miami Correctional Facility (Indiana)
- Baker Correctional Institution (Florida)
- Everglades Detention Camp (Florida)
- Louisiana State Penitentiary (Louisiana)
- Work Ethic Camp (Nebraska)
Additional detention capacity being secured through “ICE riders” to existing Intergovernmental Agreements with US Marshals Service, including:
- County jails with USMS contracts
- Private prisons with USMS contracts
Using military bases to expand immigration detention, including:
- Camp Atterbury (Indiana)
- Fort Bliss (Texas)
- Guantanamo Bay
- Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (New Jersey)
Detaining people in facilities in at least 19 states with active ICE detention contracts that have not detained people for ICE in years.
Activating or considering facilities that ICE previously paused usage or terminated contracts with due to systemic abuse and horrific conditions including:
- Etowah County Jail (Alabama) - reactivated
- Glades County Detention Center (Florida) - reactivated
- Irwin Detention Center (Georgia) - under consideration
Prioritizing the use of mega facilities to detain thousands of people, some of which are being used or considered for family detention including:
- South Texas “Dilley” Family Detention Center - reactivated for family detention
- Brownsville Family Detention (Texas) - under consideration
- Reeves Family Facility (Texas) - under consideration
Stacy Suh, Program Director from Detention Watch Network offered the following comment:
“The number of people in ICE detention is a grim indicator of Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda at work, targeting people based on where they work and what they look like, separating families, and putting people’s lives at risk. We have long known that Trump’s cruel deportation agenda would be bottomlined in an aggressive multi-layered detention expansion plan at all costs – including at the expense of Americans receiving lifesaving healthcare and millions of kids having school lunches – however, the scope and scale, and more importantly, human toll, continue to be shocking.
“People in immigration detention are describing it as ‘hell on earth’ because it is. At least 13 people have died in ICE custody since Trump was inaugurated. ICE subjects people to medical neglect, overcrowding, horrendous conditions of confinement, and rampant transfers that disappear people into the detention system, cutting people off from their loved ones and support networks. What we’re seeing now is a heightened degree of cruelty as Trump will stop at nothing to dehumanize and vilify immigrants.
“When Trump was inaugurated there were 39,703 people in detention, already more than double the amount of people than when Biden took office in 2021. Now at 60,000, the number of people in detention is at an all-time high, increasing by 51 percent in just seven months and surpassing the record-breaking 55,000 people in ICE detention during the first Trump administration. Now with a shocking $150 billion in funding for the targeting, detention and deportation of people from the MAGA-backed reconciliation bill - including 13 times ICE’s current fiscal budget for detention - Trump is planning to finance an ever broader expansion of immigration detention to detain nearly 110,000 people.
“Nationwide protests have once again illuminated that people do not want ICE agents and detention centers in their communities or anywhere. Immigrants are vital contributors to local communities – neighbors, friends, coworkers, caretakers and more. People don’t want investment in immigration enforcement or the unilateral deployment of the National Guard at the expense of critical programs that support millions of Americans like healthcare, food assistance, and education. The chilling impact of immigration enforcement is profound and widespread as people of every background will feel the absence of valued community members.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.