The Trump administration has begun reopening immigrant detention facilities and shuttered prisons nationwide, the latest move in its effort to arrest, detain, and then deport illegal immigrants in the United States.
Two prison corporations and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have moved quickly to prepare facilities to hold immigrants in virtually every region of the country.
The move followed President Donald Trump’s recent comments over the weekend, in which he called for the infamous Alcatraz prison off the San Francisco coast to be reopened to detain “America’s most ruthless and violent offenders.”
The Department of Homeland Security has maintained that the expansion of immigrant detention space is necessary to carry out Trump’s “largest-ever” deportation operation. However, the operation is moving slower than anticipated due to a lack of detention space, where immigrants are held as they go through legal proceedings before they can be deported.
Documents that the American Civil Liberties Union obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed plans to fully reopen or significantly expand ICE detention facilities in 10 states.
“The documents received provide important details regarding what we have long feared — a massive expansion of ICE detention facilities nationwide in an effort to further the Trump administration’s dystopian plans to deport our immigrant neighbors and loved ones,” Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement. “This expansion is a disastrous waste of billions of taxpayer dollars that will only line the coffers of the private prison industry.”
Those facilities include the Golden State Annex in McFarland, California; California City Correctional Center in California City, California; North Lake Correctional Center in Baldwin, Michigan; Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas; Lea County Detention Center in Hobbs, New Mexico; South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas; and El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas.
ICE is also looking to reopen the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, New Mexico; Torrance County Correctional Center in Estancia, New Mexico; Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, Nevada; Rio Grande Processing Center in Laredo, Texas; Central Valley Annex in McFarland, California; Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, California; and the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington.
Many of the sites were shut down by the Biden administration and have been documented as unsafe to house detainees. For example, the Core Civic-run facility in Leavenworth was said to have been understaffed regularly and placed detained immigrants in an “environment of violence,” according to a former prison guard.
The Trump administration’s efforts have been met with pushback from local communities and immigrant rights groups.
The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice protested plans to reopen the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, in California.
“Today, survivors of staff sexual abuse at FCI Dublin, survivors of ICE detention, Japanese-American survivors of internment camps and over 500 community supporters protested to say NO to turning the notorios [sic] FCI Dublin prison into an ICE detention center,” the CCIJ said in a post to X following a March protest.
In Newark, New Jersey, government contractor GEO Group reopened its 1,000-bed Delaney Hall facility, a move that Democrats have erupted over.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who is running for governor, sued the GEO Group over the allegation that the facility did not have valid inspections and permits to open, which the group denied.
GEO Group spokesman Christopher Ferreira told the Guardian that the group had a “valid certificate of occupancy” and met health and safety requirements.
Earlier this spring, the Trump administration was reported to be shopping around for private contractors to build immigrant detention facilities across the U.S., signifying plans for a massive expansion of its deportation operation.
In a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified that her department needed up to 60,000 more beds to have adequate space to detain illegal immigrants.
“We have the ability to go out and act quicker in this country, but need the space in which to hold them,” Noem said.
In one request for proposals, ICE asked contractors to submit plans for new facilities, security, medical support, and other services for a price tag of $45 billion over the next couple of years.
ICE, which had a total budget of nearly $10 billion this year, does not have the funding to pay the $45 billion total.
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However, Congress is considering a boost of $175 billion over the next decade to the committees that oversee immigration enforcement, meaning the agency could be receiving a larger budget.
The White House and DHS did not provide additional comments.
