ICE may soon be your neighbor, like it or not
The nation's largest law enforcement agency is spending $38 billion this year on new detention centers
ICE is coming to town. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend $38.3 billion by the end of the year on detention centers, with California and New York in its sights for the kind of campaign Minnesota has just experienced.
The agency has hired 12,000 new agents and is expecting a surge in detentions and deportations and will need more prison space to hold them. The expansion will provide 92,600 beds, according to a planning document.
ICE’s real estate expansion plans have been reported previously but there had been no official confirmation until last week, when New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte’s office released an overview of the plan that was obtained after a U.S. Senate hearing, Reuters reported.
In the document, ICE lays out a plan to buy 16 existing buildings and “renovate” them to serve as “processing centers” that can hold up to 1,500 detainees for average stays of three to seven days. It also has plans to open eight larger detention centers capable of holding 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for an average of 60 days.
In addition, ICE says it wants to acquire 10 “turnkey” facilities where the agency already operates, according to the plan.
The facilities will ensure the “safe and humane civil detention of aliens,” according to the document.
Money for the expansion comes from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last July. It includes $45 billion for detention, a huge jump from the $3.4 billion budgeted the previous year.
ICE is big business
ICE is now a very well-funded foe of anyone opposing its plans to round up and deport people it officially calls “aliens.” When Congress passed the budget bill on July 1, it made ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency, more than tripling its annual budget.
The bill includes an unprecedented $45 billion for ICE to build new immigration detention centers that will house both adults and children. As of Sept. 7, there were 58,766 people in ICE detention, compared with the 37,395 being held at the same time last year. It’s expected to hit the 100,000 mark early this year.
There are about two million people in U.S. prisons and jails, so ICE’s current estimate of 100,000 is small. But it’s worth noting that the ICE population is transitory — most of the detainees are expected to stay for only a few months before being deported. Over time, the number of people deported may pass the number imprisoned.
It’s also worth noting that inmates of jails and prisons are there because they were convicted of a crime. Being in the country without documentation isn’t a crime, despite what some may say. It’s a civil offense. Ironically, this means the detainees are lacking many of the protections built into the legal system — a fair trial and protection against self-incrimination, for example.
California, New York targeted
California and New York are among the states that are next for an ICE surge similar to the campaign in Minneapolis, a federal official said, according to WIRED. It’s difficult to confirm that, partly because building detention centers is being done mostly in secret.
It has been the pattern around the country that ICE secretly negotiates the sale or lease of existing warehouse-style facilities, not initially revealing that they will be used to house detainees. Local officials are often caught flat-footed and are as surprised as everyone else when the deals are finalized.
That’s the case in the Southern California city of Irvine, where Mayor Larry Agran reacted with surprise when told of the ICE plans.
“This is news to me,” Agran told the Orange County Register. “We try to maintain some channels of communication with Border Patrol, with ICE, with Homeland Security... it’s not easy to do. They’re not very cooperative at all, and [not] letting us know what they’re planning, what their activities consist of.”
A network of camps
ICE has bought at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas in recent weeks. Warehouse purchases in six cities were scuttled when buyers decided not to sell under pressure from activists.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is the agency that manages government real estate holdings. A WIRED report said that GSA agents have been asked by ICE to hide lease listings and other information so that locals don’t find out about the plans until it’s too late.
Government leasing transactions are usually carried out in public, with the GSA advertising for bids and providing detailed specifications. ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have reportedly used “national security concerns” as the justification for conducting business in secret.
Local resistance grows but often too late
In city after city, local governments and resistance groups find out about the ICE plans when it’s too late. Warehouse owners sometimes back out when the deals are exposed, not wanting to be part of the ICE deportation round-ups.
In Texas, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones urged Congress to block funding for a proposed 1,500-bed ICE facility in a low-income San Antonio neighborhood. In response, Rep. Henry Cuellar blasted ICE for its secrecy and lack of consultation.
In Berks County, Pennsylvania, ICE quietly bought an $87 million warehouse that could become a detention site, prompting local scrutiny. In Kansas City, the city council passed a moratorium on private detention facilities after ICE scouted a warehouse there.
Frustration is building as cities are learning they often can’t legally stop federal facilities. Some states are considering imposing new taxes on detention companies and setting up new zoning barriers.
A few areas, mostly rural, have welcomed the centers, seeing them as providing jobs and boosting property values.
Congress has cut funding to the immigration effort but it has enough funds remaining to sustain it for a few more months, so the opening of new detention centers is likely to continue at full throttle.
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Image via Midjourney