ICE is holding record number of detainees. Where are they?

(NewsNation) — With an all-time record number of migrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, Trump administration officials are aggressively pushing to add more bedspace across the country.

About 60,000 migrants are being held in ICE facilities as of this week, which exceeds the peak migrant detainee population of 55,654 from 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first White House term, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

And with so many migrants in federal custody, ICE is looking for more detention space — like a central Indiana prison dubbed “The Speedway Slammer” by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — as federal officials work to get closer to a goal of putting 100,000 beds at its disposal.

“ICE’s goal is to detain illegals and remove them from the country as quickly as possible,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told NewsNation, adding the agency is “working rapidly to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destinations — home.”

Noem has defended opening new federal detention centers, including “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida. She said she is specifically working with Republican governors including Indiana’s Mike Braun and Texas’ Greg Abbott to partner with the Trump administration in immigration enforcement efforts.

With more than $45 billion in federal funding to work with after the passage of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” officials are actively looking to add more detention spaces. With ICE in the midst of adding 10,000 new officers, the number of arrests is expected to continue to grow along with its workforce.

The New York Times, citing internal ICE data, reported that more than 1,100 people have been detained since Friday, an average of 380 per day.

“There are more boots on the ground, meaning we’re arresting more criminals, which means we need more beds,” White House border czar Tom Homan recently said.

Where is ICE detention expanding?

“Alligator Alcatraz” currently houses around 900 detainees and is operating ongoing deportation flights from a nearby airstrip. Plans are in place for the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana, nicknamed the “Speedway Slammer,” to house around 1,000 detainees, and the newest ICE facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, is scheduled to open Sunday, representing the next step in ICE’s expansion efforts.

Officials have announced that Fort Bliss will grow to 5,000 migrant beds by the time construction is completed in 2027. An El Paso County commissioner who opposes the facility called it “Camp Bliss,” telling NewsNation it’s a “concentration camp for migrants.”

Homan said he would like to see more facilities capable of holding 4,000 to 5,000 migrants added. Doing so would allow for more efficiency and for ICE to continue to arrest more migrants, he added.

Despite pledging to make more public announcements soon, Noem has not offered specific details, referring to the process as ongoing conversations with GOP state leaders. Homan told reporters that “several” states had expressed interest in partnerships, which Homan praised as a willingness to “step up.”

However, private prison companies such as CoreCivic and The GeoGroup have announced contracts to operate detention centers in places including Leavenworth, Kansas, where the shuttered Midwest Regional Reception Center could be part of growing ICE’s migrant detention holdings, according to public records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Kansas was among 11 states, including California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Washington state, where ICE could contract out space, the organization has reported.

The ACLU sued ICE in a Freedom of Information Act request for records connected to ICE expansion. NewsNation has filed its own FOIA request seeking records from ICE, which has not yet responded to the request.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he will also authorize other military installations, such as Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix Lakehurst in New Jersey, to be used to temporarily hold those in ICE custody while government officials work through developing detention space at existing facilities.

In Indiana, the “Speedway Slammer” will open as part of a new agreement that creates a partnership between state governments to jointly enforce immigration laws. Noem said during a news conference last week in suburban Chicago that more than 800 existing partnerships exist across the United States.

Noem said more agreements are needed in states such as Illinois, California and New York, where sanctuary policies are in place and where officials have pushed back against federal immigration enforcement efforts.

“We wish we could build those partnerships (in Illinois),” Noem said.

Who is being held in ICE facilities?

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported that as of July 13, 28% of detained migrants have criminal convictions, 24% have pending criminal charges and 47% have “other immigration violations.”

But Noem defended having all of those groups in detention, saying those without criminal convictions or facing charges have final removal orders previously passed down by a judge.

“They’re not following the law if they’re here illegally,” Noem said last week.

The American Immigration Council reports that the $45 billion earmarked for migrant detention represents a 265% annual increase to ICE’s existing detention budget. The amount is also 62% larger than the budget for the entire federal prison system.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association estimates that the daily cost of detaining each migrant in federal custody is around $165. The ICE spokesperson told NewsNation on Tuesday that the Trump funding bill gives the agency “more resources than ever to arrest, detain and remove” migrant criminals the Trump administration has deemed “the worst of the worst.”

Yet, such expansion of migrant detention facilities across the country has drawn criticism not only from the ACLU but from other organizations that advocate for migrant rights.

“Immigration is supposed to be civil, but in its manner, it often turns into something very punitive,” Jesse Franzblau, the senior policy analyst for the National Immigrant Justice Center, told NewsNation. “So the more people who are forced into detention under these programs that the Trump administration is rolling out is even more concerning in regards to people’s health and people’s safety.”