New documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit reveal that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is actively reviewing proposals from private companies to expand immigration detention facilities in at least six states, including California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington.
Private businesses, including CoreCivic, GEO Group, and Management & Training Corporation, filed plans for facilities that could add 6,650 to 12,000 detention beds countrywide. Some of the planned sites, such as the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Kansas and the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico, have already been criticized for their unsafe or unsanitary conditions.
ICE’s request, as documented in the records, stated that the agency was looking for an inventory of potentially thousands of beds, largely for men but also for women, from public or private businesses, with no imminent plans to sign contracts.
“You cannot have mass deportations without a significant expansion of ICE detention capacity in states across the country, and that’s exactly what the incoming Trump administration is preparing to do,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project in a statement. “Rather than permanently shutting down abusive detention facilities, the Biden administration is paving the way for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his cruel and inhumane mass deportation proposals.”
Cho also called the development “tremendously disappointing,” expressing concerns about the consequences for immigrant safety and due process to The Washington Post.
The ACLU claims that the documents demonstrate that only private, for-profit firms filed plans to jail immigrants or provide security or other services. Among them are the country’s two largest private prison businesses, CoreCivic in Tennessee and GEO Group in Florida.
It’s worth remembering that both firms’ prices rose days after Trump appointed Thomas Homan as his “border czar,” boosted by market predictions of higher demand for detention services and stricter immigration enforcement under Trump’s incoming administration.
The news confirms a Guardian report that the Biden administration has been extending contracts for private immigration detention centers and exploring expanded detention capacity, potentially laying the groundwork for Trump’s immigration plans, despite Biden’s previous pledge during the 2020 campaign to end the use of privately run detention facilities.
Facilities slated for growth in the records discovered by the ACLU include the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which halted holding families in 2021 due to claims of substandard child care, and the California City Correctional Center, a former state jail. Other facilities include the Nevada Southern Detention Center and the Cibola County Correctional Center, which have both been penalized for medical negligence and abuse.
