ICE looking into expanding migrant detention facilities, ACLU says

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is looking to expand its migrant detention facilities with the start of the new Trump administration just days away, according to a report. 

Trump has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in the history of the U.S. and part of that program is expected to involve the use of ICE detention facilities, some of which the ACLU says raise concerns over migrant safety. 

ICE detains approximately 37,000 people each day via a network of more than 120 immigration detention facilities nationwide, per an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, citing ICE documents. The ACLU says that the Trump administration plans to ramp up those numbers to 100,000 per day. 

Incoming Trump “border czar” Tom Homan has vowed to deport illegal migrants. (Fox News)

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Although ICE owns five detention facilities of its own, the ACLU says ICE relies on other entities such as non-profits and inter-governmental agreements with private prison companies to hold the majority of people in its custody.

In the ACLU FOIA lawsuit filed in September, the ACLU sued ICE for information on a possible expansion of migrant detention facilities around the country.

According to Border Report, citing documents received by the ACLU, facilities in six states responded to the ICE request, including facilities in and around Harlingen and El Paso, Texas, as well as in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Nevada and Salt Lake City, Utah.

The facilities that are being considered in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley include the Willacy County Jail in Raymondville, which is run by the GEO Group; the Brooks County Detention Facility in Falfurrias; the Coastal Bend Detention Center in Robstown; and the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa.

Exterior view from the Immigrant Detention Center on Aug. 20, 2023, in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  (Kena Betancur/VIEWpress)

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ACLU senior attorney Eunice Cho told Border Report that it’s important for the American public to know exactly what ICE is planning to do, both in terms of enforcement and in terms of detention of people from our immigrant communities.

The GEO Group and CoreCivic operated the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which was shut down last year, but Cho says CoreCivic says it would be willing to reopen the facility, a potential move that worries migrant advocates who have alleged mistreatment of immigrants at the facility.

“We have serious concerns about expanding immigration detention in South Texas. Many of these facilities… have very serious histories of conditions, violations and abusive conditions in those detention facilities,” Cho told Border Report. 

She says the ACLU wants more information on exactly what ICE plans to do.

“We are concerned, of course, with the potential growth of the immigration detention system,” Cho said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE and the ACLU for comment. 

Migrants at an ICE detention center at the Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Aug. 14, 2024. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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The exact details of President-elect Trump’s deportation plan aren’t exactly clear, although both he and incoming “Border Czar” Tom Homan have said that criminal migrants will be targeted first. Trump has also appointed hardliner South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Homan, meanwhile, has said that family detention centers for migrants are also “on the table.”

Family detention ended in 2021, soon after President Biden took office, and that included closing three ICE facilities with about 3,000 beds, according to Fox 5 DC.