Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking contractors to renovate industrial warehouses and hold more than 80,000 migrants, according to a new report.
The Washington Post detailed that rather than sending detainees around the country depending on where there is availability, the idea is to create a feeder system where they will be booked into processing sites for weeks before being sent to large-scale warehouses.
The idea is to have seven of them, each available to hold between 5,000 and 10,000 people, and 16 smaller ones that would hold about 1,500 people. They would then be deported from there. The warehouses are set to be located close to logistics hubs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri.
The plans come as ICE continues to arrest people across the U.S., reaching new records. As of Dec. 14, 2025, ICE was detaining more than 68,400 people nationwide, the highest figure ever recorded in the agency's biweekly data, according to an analysis by The Guardian.
The total surpasses a previous record set earlier this month. Based on ICE figures tracked by the newspaper, the administration has arrested more than 328,000 people and deported nearly 327,000 since January.
Despite repeated statements by the administration that enforcement efforts prioritize "the worst of the worst," immigrants with no criminal record continue to make up the largest share of those in detention, The Guardian noted. Being undocumented is a civil, not criminal, violation of U.S. law, and ICE data show that many detainees are held solely for immigration offenses such as unauthorized entry or overstaying a visa.
Government figures obtained through public records requests and reported by Axios in early December indicate that nearly 579,000 people have been arrested by the Department of Homeland Security since President Trump took office. Arrests accelerated after the administration raised internal daily arrest targets earlier this year.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Dec. 3 that the daily average had climbed to about 1,800 arrests in recent weeks, though DHS has not published comprehensive enforcement data for the period.
Data cited by CBS News show a sharp increase in arrests of people with no criminal history, with the number of detainees without criminal charges or convictions rising more than 2,000% since the start of Trump's second term. As of mid-November, nearly half of all people in ICE custody had no criminal record in the United States.
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