Noman Sabit: The Trump administration plans to open warehouses throughout the United States to house up to 80,000 detained migrants who are slated for deportation, according to The Washington Post.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking contractors to help it renovate at least 22 warehouse facilities for detention use, the Post reported Wednesday, citing draft documents. The report comes as the administration plans to ramp up deportations in 2026, and currently is holding the most detainees ever in U.S. history — over 70,000.
Seven large-scale holding centers would be set up in renovated industrial warehouses in key cities, including two in Texas – each facility holding between 5,000 and 10,000 people – where migrants could be deported from. Fifteen smaller-scale centers would be set up in warehouses – holding 500 to 1,500 people – to be used as quick processing facilities, including two on the Texas border with Mexico, according to the Post.
The plan is only in draft form and subject to change, but according to current documents, the large-scale facilities would be located in:
Stafford, Virginia
Hutchins, Texas
Hammond, Louisiana
Baytown, Texas
Glendale, Arizona
Social Circle, Georgia
Kansas City, Missouri
The 15 processing sites would be holding locations for a few weeks before migrants are funneled into the larger-scale warehouses. The smaller facilities currently are slated to be built in: Los Fresnos, Texas
El Paso, Texas
Hagerstown, Maryland
Highland Park, Michigan
Jefferson, Georgia
Jupiter, Florida
Merrillville, Indiana
Merrimack, New Hampshire
Oklahoma City
Port Allen, Louisiana
Roxbury, New Jersey
Salt Lake City
San Antonio
Tremont, Pennsylvania
Woodbury, Minnesota
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Border Report has reached out to ICE and Homeland Security officials for confirmation of the plan and locations. This story will be updated if information is received.
ICE received a massive $45 billion for detentions under the Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress and signed by Trump on July 4.
Many of those funds are going to expand bed facilities.
ICE currently is holding 72,110 migrants in facilities throughout the country, according to the latest data on ICE’s website. This includes 70,190 adults in detention, including over 63,700 detained within the past 180 days; and 77 who have been held over 730 days, according to ICE data. This is the most people ever held in ICE detention facilities. And it’s a dramatic increase from the fewer than 20,000 migrants held in ICE detention facilities in January 2023 under the Biden administration.
Arrests in December, so far, have exceeded over 44,000, according to reports.
“In less than a year, President Trump has delivered some of the most historic and consequential achievements in presidential history — and this Administration is just getting started,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a recent statement.
Noem says there have been over 622,000 deportations of migrants since Trump took office for his second term. She says 1.9 million people have self-deported.
Homeland Security currently is offering anyone who self-deports a stipend of $3,000 plus travel expenses – that’s an increase from $1,000 previously – and is a limited offer through the end of the year. Migrants can declare they are self deporting and sign up to receive the funds through the CBP Home app here.
Noem urges that migrants “should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”
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