Analysis

Second in a Three-Part Series

This resource is part of a series that explores the various avenues for massive detention expansion. Here, we discuss plans to expand ICE detention into the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ). Using and recycling federal prisons for ICE detention is not new. It is a continuation of a carceral carousel, the regular cycling of prisons for use by federal, state, and local government agencies. While the population of people imprisoned in these facilities changes over time, the conditions remain the same: medical neglect, mistreatment and abuse, isolation, and lack of access to legal and community support. Today, as the Trump administration targets a growing number of people for mass deportation and the number of people in detention skyrockets, ICE has increasingly turned to current and former BOP facilities as one way to expand detention capacity. This trend signals further merging of the crimina legal and immigration detention systems, demonstrating the necessity of ending mass detention and deportation as a part of a larger struggle to end mass incarceration.