Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning a major expansion of detention and processing capacity, federal officials said in a document released Friday that lays out how the agency expects to increase bed space by November. The plan calls for spending $38.3 billion to add detention capacity to roughly 92,000 beds, with a higher end figure of 92,600 beds, according to the document described by the Associated Press.
The document outlines a package of detention and processing sites that includes both new regional centers and additional large-scale facilities, as well as the acquisition of existing “turnkey” sites, AP reported. It also depicts ICE converting facilities the document calls “non-traditional facilities,” including warehouses the agency has sought to purchase in recent weeks.
The plan includes 16 regional processing centers that would each hold between 1,000 and 1,500 detainees, with stays averaging three to seven days, according to AP’s description of the document. The document also calls for eight large-scale detention centers capable of housing between 7,000 and 10,000 detainees, with average stays of less than 60 days.
AP reported that the document refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities. It also says all of the described sites are intended to be up and running by November as part of a broader $45 billion detention expansion financed by President Donald Trump’s recent tax-cutting law, according to the AP account.
The reporting described a growing gap between the agency’s visible footprint and the details local officials have been able to confirm. City officials, AP said, are often unable to get information from ICE until property transactions are finalized.
AP reported that the document described ICE’s warehouse purchases in multiple states, including Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, and that some of those deals in specific cities were abandoned when buyers decided not to sell under pressure from activists. Several other transactions, AP said, were still imminent in places such as New York.
The expansion comes as federal data released last week showed ICE detaining more than 75,000 immigrants as of mid-January, up from about 40,000 when Trump took office a year earlier, AP reported. The AP account said the new document was released amid local political tension over proposed conversions of existing facilities, including a warehouse planned for Merrimack, New Hampshire, described as a 500-bed processing center.
Republican New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte posted the document online, AP reported, and the dispute quickly turned into a public clash over the handling of economic-impact information. Tensions boiled after interim ICE Director Todd Lyons testified Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security “has worked with Gov. Ayotte” and provided her with an economic impact summary, AP reported. Ayotte said that assertion was “simply not true,” and she said the summary was sent hours after Lyons testified.
AP reported that the document mistakenly referred to “the ripple effects to the Oklahoma economy” and to revenue from state sales and income taxes that do not exist in New Hampshire. Ayotte said Lyons’ comments were another example of “the troubling pattern of issues with this process,” and she said officials from DHS continued to provide “zero details” about plans for Merrimack and did not provide any reports or surveys.
DHS did not respond to questions about Ayotte’s comments or the document, according to AP. But DHS previously confirmed it was seeking more detention space while objecting to calling the sites “warehouses,” describing them instead as facilities “very well structured” and meeting detention standards, AP reported.
As ICE moves to increase capacity through both purpose-built centers and conversions, the document described by AP places emphasis on operating time frames and detainee numbers at different types of facilities. The plan also highlights how the agency’s effort can become politically charged once state and local leaders try to verify what is being planned and when.