The Trump administration has picked little-known companies to spearhead turning warehouses into mass detention centers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
To carry out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, federal authorities need more space to hold migrants before they are deported. Conditions inside ICE detention centers have been under scrutiny, including claims that the facilities are overcrowded.
In an effort to increase detention capacity, the Department of Homeland Security is converting warehouses into new detention centers. According to government documents, contractors will renovate eight existing structures into detention centers that can hold 7,000 to 10,000 detainees.
The project, which includes the renovation of 16 processing centers, is estimated to cost $38.3 billion and will be funded by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Defense contractor KVG LLC was awarded a government contract worth at least $113.1 million Friday to retrofit a warehouse in the Williamsport area of Maryland and provide services to run it as a detention center, according to federal spending records.
Security contractor GardaWorld Federal Services LLC was awarded its own contract worth at least $313.4 million Friday to renovate a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, and provide services for the operation of the ICE facility, records show.
Both projects are expected to be completed in about a year, but it could take up until 2029.
The newly awarded contracts were first reported by The Baltimore Banner and Substack blog Project Salt Box.
The Washington Post highlighted the relative inexperience of these two firms compared to industry leaders The Geo Group, Inc. and CoreCivic.
The contract for the Maryland center is the first government contract for immigrant detention that KVG LLC has been awarded, The Washington Post reported Monday.
While GardaWorld Federal Services LLC has employed guards at immigrant facilities in Canada and the U.S., the agreement for the center in Arizona is the first time the company has been directly contracted by ICE to oversee a detention center, according to the publication.
Geo Group spokesman Chris Ferreira told The Washington Post the company will continue to provide services “that help the federal government meet its goal of increasing overall detention capacity.”
CoreCivic told The Independent the ICE detention center renovations in Maryland and Arizona are “not projects that we pursued.”
“CoreCivic isn’t a company whose business model is under threat — we’re a company whose expertise has never been more essential,” CoreCivic spokesman Steve Owen told The Washington Post. "The idea that companies with no track record in this industry can replicate the decades of operational experience, compliance infrastructure and facility management capability we have defies common sense.”
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the newly awarded contracts, but told the publication, “ICE has new funding to expand detention space to keep these criminals off American streets before they are removed for good from our communities.”
The Independent has reached out to DHS, KVG LLC, Geo Group and CoreCivic for comment. GardaWorld Federal Services directed questions to DHS.
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