The Trump administration’s push to expand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity has drawn growing resistance from local officials and residents, as ICE seeks new space to hold detained immigrants in warehouses, converted jails and privately run facilities. Federal immigration officials have been scouting cities and counties across the United States as the administration pursues a reported $45 billion expansion of detention sites financed by President Donald Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.
The issue has intensified amid heightened scrutiny of ICE plans following fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis, drawing additional attention to how the agency carries out enforcement and detention. Against that backdrop, a proposed ICE facility north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors. Kimberly Matthews, a resident, warned officials that the detention fight would spread, telling county officials: “You want what’s happening in Minnesota to go down in our own backyard? Build that detention center here, and that’s exactly what will happen.”
In Kansas City, Missouri, elected officials moved to blunt a potential ICE footprint by passing an ordinance aimed at blocking a proposed detention site. Mayors in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City also announced that property owners would not be selling or leasing facilities for immigration detention, after raising concerns tied to building permits. Elsewhere, state legislatures have begun pressing ahead with bills that would bar or discourage ICE facilities, including measures in New Mexico and proposals in California.
At the national level, federal data released in early February showed the scale of the detention expansion already underway. More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by ICE as of mid-January, up from 40,000 when Trump took office a year earlier, according to the federal data released Tuesday. In the same period, the number of detention facilities used by ICE more than doubled to 225 sites spread across a combined 48 states and territories, with most of the growth attributed to existing contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service or agreements to use empty beds in county jails.
ICE’s expansion plans also include steps toward opening larger facilities. In January, ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland; $84 million for a warehouse in Berks County, Pennsylvania; and more than $70 million for a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, the AP reported. Federal immigration officials also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York, while touring other potential warehouses without releasing many operational details.
ICE detention site opponents have faced legal limitations on what local authorities can do, particularly when the proposed sites involve privately owned property. Danielle Jefferis, an associate law professor at the University of Nebraska who focuses on immigration and civil litigation, said in an interview that state and local governments can decline to lease detention space to ICE but generally cannot prohibit businesses and private landowners from using their property for federal immigrant detention centers. Jefferis also pointed to court decisions where similar state efforts were struck down, including a 2023 federal ruling invalidating a California law that barred private immigrant detention facilities, and a July appeals-court panel decision that cited similar grounds in striking down a New Jersey law that forbade agreements to operate immigrant detention facilities.
Even when federal intent becomes visible to local governments, officials have said they may have little recourse. After ICE officials toured a warehouse in Orlando, Florida, local officials looked into ways to regulate or prevent it, but a city attorney told them in a letter that “ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate.” In Hanover County, officials asked their attorney about legal options after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter confirming its intent to purchase a private property for use as an ICE processing facility, with the proposed building located near retail businesses, hotels, restaurants and several neighborhoods. Hanover Board of Supervisors Chair Sean Davis said opposition would be difficult because “The federal government is generally exempt from our zoning regulations,” describing the constraints facing local attempts to challenge detention proposals.
Kansas City’s efforts to resist a new site underscore how local action can collide with federal authority, even when residents and officials raise permit and land-use concerns. The Kansas City Council voted in January to impose a five-year moratorium on non-city-run detention facilities on the same day ICE officials toured a nearly 1-million-square-foot warehouse as a prospective site. Manny Abarca, a county lawmaker, said he was initially threatened with trespassing when he arrived but was eventually allowed inside the facility, where a deputy ICE field office director told him they were scouting for a 7,500-bed site. Abarca said he is trying to strengthen Kansas City’s position by proposing a countywide moratorium on permits, zoning changes and development plans for detention facilities not run by the county or a city.
As other proposals emerged, localities in Social Circle, Georgia; Merrillville, Indiana; El Paso, Texas; and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, raised concerns about whether proposed sites have adequate water and sewer capacity for warehouse-to-detention conversions. In Leavenworth, Kansas, officials were also seeking to hold private prison operator CoreCivic to its obligations as a city planning commission advanced a three-year permit that would be needed for CoreCivic to reopen a shuttered prison as an ICE detention facility capable of housing up to 1,000 detainees. Jefferis said legal outcomes remain uncertain, describing the moment as one where courts are still testing the boundaries of local authority, saying, “We’re currently in a moment where it is being tested,” and adding, “So there is no clear answer as to how the courts are going to come down.”
State-level legislation is emerging as another route for resistance, though it too can trigger legal challenges. In New Mexico, Democratic-led House legislation passed Friday to ban state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities and send the measure to the Senate. Similar bills were pending in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. In the New Mexico debate, the potential impact included the Otero County Processing Center about 25 miles from downtown El Paso, Texas, which AP reported is privately run and includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees.
Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said the county was prepared to sue the Legislature under a state law that prevents impairment of outstanding revenue bonds, arguing that the detention center was built with financing plans dating to 2007 and had remaining debt of $16.5 million to be paid off by 2028. Republicans warned the ban could lead to job losses and economic fallout if it forces immigrant detention centers to close, while Democrats argued the facility creates burdens for communities already confronting immigration enforcement pressures. Democratic state Rep. Sarah Silva, who voted for the ban, said her constituents in a heavily Hispanic area viewed the ICE facility as a burden, and she said, “Our state can’t be complicit in the violations that ICE has been doing in places like Minneapolis,” adding, “To me that was beyond the tipping point.”