The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says so. 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 US history, and part of that program is expected to include using ICE detention facilities, which the ACLU says raise concerns about migrant safety.
ICE detains approximately 37,000 people each day through a network of more than 120 immigration detention facilities across the country, according to the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint, citing ICE documents. The ACLU says it is Trump administration plans to increase those numbers to 100,000 a day.
Trump’s future “border czar” Tom Homan has promised to deport illegal migrants. (Fox News)
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Although ICE owns five of its own detention facilities, the ACLU says ICE relies on other entities such as nonprofit organizations and intergovernmental agreements with private prison companies to hold most people in custody.
In a FOIA lawsuit against the ACLU filed in September, the ACLU sued ICE for information about the possible expansion of migrant detention facilities across the country.
According to the Border Report, citing documents obtained by the ACLU, facilities in six states responded to ICE’s request, including facilities in and around Harlingen and El Paso, Texas, as well as San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Nevada and Salt Lake City , Utah.
Facilities under consideration in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley include the Willacy County Jail in Raymondville, operated by the GEO Group; Brooks County Detention Center in Falfurrias; the Coastal Bend Detention Center in Robstown; and the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa.
An exterior view of an immigration detention center on August 20, 2023 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. (Kena Betancur/VIEWpress)
ACLU Senior Counsel Eunice Cho told Border Report that it’s important for the American public to know exactly what ICE plans to do, both in terms of enforcement and in terms of detaining people from our immigrant communities.
The GEO Group and CoreCivic operated the South Texas Family Housing Center in Dilley, Texas, which closed last year, but Cho says CoreCivic says it would be willing to reopen the facility, a potential move that worries advocates of migrants who allegedly abused immigrants in the institution.
“We are seriously concerned about the expansion of immigration detention in South Texas. Many of these facilities … have very serious histories of conditions, violations and abuse in these detention facilities,” Cho told Border Report.
She says the ACLU wants more information about exactly what ICE plans to do.
“We are concerned, of course, about 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 the ICE detention center at the Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) in Shreveport, Louisiana, on August 14, 2024. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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The exact details of President-elect Trump’s deportation plan are not exactly clear, although both he and incoming “czar” Tom Homan have said that criminal migrants will be targeted first. Trump also appointed hardline South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Meanwhile, Homan said that these are also family detention centers for migrants “on the table.”
Family detention ended in 2021, shortly after President Biden took office, and that included closing three ICE facilities with about 3,000 beds, according to Fox 5 DC.
