Trump's $45 billion expansion of immigrant detention sites faces pushback from communities
By: NBC News
BIGGER Big Government.
Yeah, that's what the country needs.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Feb. 3, 2026,
With tensions high over federal immigration enforcement, some state and local officials are pushing back against attempts by President Donald Trump's administration to house thousands of detained immigrants in their communities in converted warehouses, privately run facilities and county jails.
Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by Trump's recent tax-cutting law.
The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.
A proposed ICE facility just north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people last week to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.
"You want what's happening in Minnesota to go down in our own backyard? Build that detention center here, and that's exactly what will happen," resident Kimberly Matthews told county officials.
As a prospective ICE detention site became public, elected officials in Kansas City, Missouri, scrambled to pass an ordinance aimed at blocking it. And mayors in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City — after raising concerns about building permits — announced last week that property owners won't be selling or leasing their facilities for immigration detention.
Meanwhile, legislatures in several Democratic-led states pressed forward with bills aimed at blocking or discouraging ICE facilities. A New Mexico measure targets local government agreements to detain immigrants for ICE. A novel California proposal seeks to nudge companies running ICE facilities out of the state by imposing a 50% tax on their proceeds.
The number of ICE detention sites has doubled
More than 70,000 immigrants were being detained by ICE as of late December, up from 40,000 when Trump took office, according to federal data.
In a little over a year, the number of detention facilities used by ICE nearly doubled to 212 sites spread across 47 states and territories. Most of that growth came through existing contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service or deals to use empty beds at county jails.
Demonstrators hold a vigil in tribute to Renee Nicole Good and Jean Wilson Brutus outside Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, N.J., on Jan. 18. Brutus, a Haitian migrant, died in detention at Delaney Hall.Apolline Guillerot-Malick / Sipa USA via AP file
Trump's administration now is taking steps to open more large-scale facilities. In January, ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, $84 million for one in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and more than $70 million for one in Surprise, Arizona. It also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York.
Federal immigration officials have toured large warehouses elsewhere, without releasing many details about the efforts.
"They will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards," ICE said in a statement, adding: "It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space."
Detention site foes face legal limitations
State and local governments can decline to lease detention space to ICE, but they generally cannot prohibit businesses and private landowners from using their property for federal immigrant detention centers, said Danielle Jefferis, an associate law professor at the University of Nebraska who focuses on immigration and civil litigation.
In 2023, a federal court invalidated a California law barring private immigrant detention facilities for infringing on federal powers. A federal appeals court panel cited similar grounds in July while striking down a New Jersey law that forbade agreements to operate immigrant detention facilities.
After ICE officials recently toured a warehouse in Orlando, Florida, as a prospective site, local officials looked into ways to regulate or prevent it. But City Attorney Mayanne Downs advised them in a letter that "ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate."
Officials in Hanover County also asked their attorney to evaluate legal options after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter confirming its intent to purchase a private property for use as an ICE processing facility. The building sits near retail businesses, hotels, restaurants and several neighborhoods.
Although some residents voiced concerns that an ICE facility could strain the county's resources, there's little the county can do to oppose it, said Board of Supervisors Chair Sean Davis.
"The federal government is generally exempt from our zoning regulations," Davis said.
Kansas City tries to block new ICE detention site
Despite court rulings elsewhere, the City Council in Kansas City voted in January to impose a five-year moratorium on non-city-run detention facilities. The vote came on the same day ICE officials toured a nearly 1-million-square-foot (92,903-square-meter) warehouse as a prospective site.
Manny Abarca, a county lawmaker, said he initially was threatened with trespassing when he showed up but was eventually allowed inside the facility, where a deputy ICE field office director told him they were scouting for a 7,500-bed site.
Abarca is trying to fortify Kansas City's resistance by proposing a countywide moratorium on permits, zoning changes and development plans for detention facilities not run by the county or a city.
"When federal power is putting communities on edge, local government has a responsibility to act where we have authority," he said.
Protesters demonstrate outside a warehouse as federal officials tour it to consider repurposing it for an ICE detention facility in Kansas City on Jan. 15.Heather Hollingsworth / AP file
Kansas City is looking to follow a similar path as Leavenworth, Kansas, which has argued that private prison firm CoreCivic must have an operating permit to reopen a shuttered prison as an ICE detention facility.
As other ICE proposals have surfaced, officials in Social Circle, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, all have raised concerns about a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.
Nationally, it remains to be seen whether local governments can effectively deter ICE facilities through building permits and regulations.
"We're currently in a moment where it is being tested," Jefferis said. "So there is no clear answer as to how the courts are going to come down."
New Mexico targets existing ICE facilities
The Democratic-led New Mexico House on Friday passed legislation banning state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities, sending it to the Senate. Similar bills are pending in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.
The Otero County Processing Center, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from downtown El Paso, Texas, is one of three privately run ICE facilities that could be affected by the New Mexico legislation. The facility includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees. The county financed its construction in 2007 with the intent to use it as a revenue source, and plans to pay off the remaining $16.5 million debt by 2028.
Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said the county is prepared to sue the Legislature under a state law that prevents impairment of outstanding revenue bonds.
Republicans warned of job losses and economic fallout if the legislation forces immigrant detention centers to close.
But Democratic state Rep. Sarah Silva, who voted for the ban, and said her constituents in a heavily Hispanic area view the ICE facility as a burden.
"Our state can't be complicit in the violations that ICE has been doing in places like Minneapolis," Silva said. "To me that was beyond the tipping point."
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Remember when Gregg Abbott and Ron DeSantis were bussing illegal immigrants to Blue Cities? Trump Republicans certainly got a kick out of the joke. Now Trump is rounding up all those bussed illegals and flying them back to Texas and Florida. Does that mean Trump Republicans are now the butt of the joke?
Doesn't seem like a sensible way to run a business. But apparently this is the only way a BIGGER Big Government can do things. Or is this because Trump just doesn't have a clue what he is doing?
"Blue Cities"? Oh, you're referring to the Democrat's Sanctuary Shitholes. How many of those Sanctuary Shitholes pushed the people they swore to support out of their communities? Didn't Matha's Vineyard call in the National Guard to remove them?
Nothing demonstrated their hypocrisy better than that.
Rich progressives want their illegals out of town by sundown and far away from them after they finish cutting the lawn...
Something like that. But now Trump has deployed paramilitary ICE to round them up and fly them back to Texas and Florida. At $1.5 million a head there must be a lot grift for the pigs at the public trough. (And that doesn't confuse ICE with police.)
Where are you coming up with the $1.5Mil?
That's from an analysis published by the Star Tribune on February 11, 2026, titled "Opinion | What has the ICE surge really cost? And was it worth it?".
Here's a link to the source but it may be locked behind a paywall. You might be able to read it though so give the link a try:
Another example of reactionary propaganda expressing hatred for America.
And.....removal from the country.
Virtually every other country have prison sentences associated with entering illegally.
Not hatred for America. I'm not a democrat or liberal. I just hate the retarded democrat policy that doesn't benefit the actual citizens.
While the other side of their face screams "leave them alone, they are trying to make a better life for themselves".
I don't disagree. But there really is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Doing what should be done the worst way possible doesn't win friends; that only creates enemies.
Obama presided over about 3 million deportations. Biden presided over about 1.5 million deportations. There wasn't huge expenditures of public money, there weren't armies of masked agents roaming the streets, there weren't economic and social disruptions. Neither Obama or Biden turned communities into detention centers at an enormous cost to taxpayers. Why were the approaches used by Obama and Biden wrong?
Trump wanted to create chaos. Trump wanted images of riots in the streets. But what happened fed the narrative of a 'white minority' dominated by a militant 'brown' majority using the authority of Big Government. The ICE agents weren't Marlboro men dressed in white hats. The ICE agents did not look like the good guys and did not behave like the good guys. The ICE agents looked like rioters.
Trump screwed the pooch trying to show his big balls were national treasures. That's not how good guys do things. That's not how someone becomes a hero in American culture. That's not the right way to do things that need to be done.
After the open borders allowed by the Democrats during their last attempt at running the country, the example needs to be set and enforced.
And how many illegals were permitted? Estimates put it far above 1.5 million.
And, as expected, the left obliged.
There are other ways to accomplish that. There's no need to try to start another civil war. Removing immigrants was a winning issue for Trump Republicans. Now that political message has been damaged. To accomplish what?
So, where the fuck is the border wall? Trump is spending money on warehouses and building the cheap assed surveillance wall Democrats wanted. How the hell will warehouse prevent aliens illegally entering the country?
Didn't see it. What I saw was ICE behaving like BLM rioters.
It appears that there was no need for a border wall. Enforcement was enough to bring illegal crossings down to a mere trickle.
Democrat's didn't fkng want it. They fought it every step of the way.
Then you need to step away from the propaganda and take an honest look around. Start with what happened in LA.
People wanted to immigrate to the US when the US was more free and less repressive than Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia.
Trump flipped that dynamic! Like moving to Germany in 1939.
Only 500 ICE and CBP agents were surged to Los Angeles. 3,000 were surged to Minneapolis. The ICE operations in Los Angeles were targeted. The ICE operations in Minneapolis were neighborhood sweeps. You're trying to mix orange juice into the boysenberry syrup.
Trump deploying 5,000 military troops to Los Angeles was the gasoline on the fire. The troop deployment was a major Federal escalation and that triggered more extensive protests. The reason the protests appeared more violent is because the troops were disciplined, stayed in crowd control formation, and basically looked like they knew what they were doing.
BTW, why are you talking about protesters instead of immigrants and deportations? The issue that garnered public support was immigration and not cracking down on protesters. Your comments prove that Trump's hardball approach has lost the narrative because you would rather talk about protesters than deportations.
Almost 10% of the populations of those countries have moved here.
Progressives are fighting to keep people in what they believe is Germany in 1939. They must really hate immigrants to do that to them.
In that case, Melania needs to be snatched up by ICE and sent to a holding cell.
As I am sure you know, and most reasonable Americans now know, that Melania was born in a Communist country, Slovenia, raised by Communist parents, educated in Communist schools, and attended Slovenia University, where she studied architecture for one year before dropping out of the University to become a PORN FILM cast member.
Her specialty was "WOMEN ON WOMEN", the favorite of the Russian Porn Industry in much of Europe.
Trump got Melania a "Genius VISA", stating that she spoke 6 languages and was an ARCHITECT.
She came to America on a FAKE VISIA, later, when she was in the White House, she and her husband, Trump, brought her Communist Mother and her Father, the Head of the Communist Party in Slovenia, to the United States and had them move into the WHITE HOUSE, which made Putin very pleased.
If ICE is an legitatent organization, they should have started with MELANIA!
ICE IS A NE0-NAZI ARMY OF KILLERS, THUGS, JANUARY 6th Rioters, and a number of the "PROUD BOYS", WHO ARE stone cold fascists.
TRUMP is not who he tells you he is!
TRUMP is a TRAITOR!
So the communities don't want pedophiles, murders and rapists in their communities.
No one does. The problem is that reportedly, 70 to 80% of the current 70,000 detainees have no criminal records.
An inordinate number of them were picked up at Court Houses when they reported to long awaited appointments about asylum or green card approval or work permit extensions;
The lowest of the low hanging fruit.
Immigration gives them a list and they don't read anything but the name and pick them up.
Seamus Culton, here 20 years, married to a Yankee and ran a successful plastering business in New England.
He was on a list to get his permanent Green Card. He was picked up and has been in Detention in Texas for 5 months.
The father of the three Marines, who is married to a US citizen and eligible to stay in the US has been in detention for months despite a recent release order from a federal judge.
Another Irish woman, who lived and worked here for 50 years was picked up because she had a criminal record from passing 2 bad checks worth less than $80.00 back in 1993, still in Texass detention.
It's unconscionable to have people in the system for years or decades, abruptly picked up while following the courts rules. it's entrapment.
Take the 25% with valid criminal records of import and deport them, don't make plans to house 700,000 in small towns or on our own military bases, that's not the mission.
Crossing the border illegally gives one a criminal record.
Just in case you didn't read past the first sentence again.
It's the USA, therefore, it's not that simple.
I know it's complicated.
You don't have a record until you are caught and documented.
Crossing the border and disappearing into the heartland is a criminal offence if you can prove it.
Being caught in the states without documentation is a civil violation but is still punishable by deportation.
Being caught at the border is punishable by fines, 6 months imprisonment and deportation.
Turning one's self in at a legitimate border crossing and seeking asylum is not illegal and the people who do this do not expect to be arrested years later
while patiently waiting at the court house or reporting to the courts multiple times a year, for a process that could take ten years and STILL result in a
deportation, or not.
ICE is picking people up left and right on ASSUMPTION, saying their work papers, green cards or visa's aren't valid.
They aren't deporting most of them they are holding them in warehouses and they want to hold them on a base near you, possibly the one you live on,
are you ok with that?
Crossing the border illegally gives one a criminal record.
Question: Who are these paranoid fucking snowflakes who are quaking in their panties over this kind of “criminality”? Rhetorical question, of course.
No one is "quaking" over anything. Just the opposite.
We are tired of illegals coming here, demanding we pay their living costs, or the ones stealing from Americans and sending the stolen money to a different country to finance terrorist organizations.
Here is a question I have asked several leftists here and have never received a real answer, only insults.
How many of these illegals have you taken into your home, given them a roof over their heads, food, clothing, transportation costs paid them a salary for whatever you want them to do and paid their health care costs.
I ask with so many examples of what you need to pay because this is what Americans pay every single day and most receive zero in handouts.
Prove it. There should be ample documentation of millions of people foolish enough to ask for welfare or voting privileges with no legal ID... it is a fantasy.
Again, google it and provide proof that it happens on any meaningful scale.
Not really interested in sophomoric "gotcha" questions that are off topic and are insulting deflections.
Benefit fraud is no stranger to red or blue states.
Benefits fraud is long-standing in both blue and red states : NPR
One in three people receive some form of government benefit.
Welfare Fraud Statistics in the US 2026 | Key Facts - The World Data
Again, welfare fraud is committed by Americans who have been vetted and investigated repeatedly and still get over on the government.
Welfare Abuse Statistics in the United States - LegalClarity
And yet some non citizens attempt to collect benefits and seem to get away with it, until...they get caught.
According to the government 6.6% of all welfare fraud is attempted by non citizens. 21% result in no fraud or loss to the government.
So upwards of 94% of all "welfare Fraud" is committed by American citizens to the tune of $ 247 Billion .
Welfare Fraud Statistics in the US 2026 | Key Facts - The World Data
So instead of campaigning on fighting the elephant in the room, the $245 Billion stolen by Americans,
you want to concentrate on the $1.4 Billion stolen by non citizens?
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Yea, unfortunately trump seems to go all over the place.
There's an olde saying;
When Winter comes we'll know which trees are evergreen!
Get them out of the country don't keep them and don't let them back
American Indians should have done exactly that.
See where they are now because they didn't
There is a lesson to be learned
Now they are being picked up by ICE who tell them their sovereign tribal IDs are no good, free trip to Texas !
When did these people conquer the settlers that came here?
And no, there were no borders or immigration laws, so the settlers did not come here illegally.
Telling who thinks that, isn't it?
Of course, some did. Others thought the American settlers could be used as weapons against other tribes. Sort of like Democrats think illegals can be used to help them obtain and maintain power. Didn't work out well for the Indians who tried it, did it?
initially they kept pressure on the original colonies to remain just that, within their borders, many established by the Indians and William Penn of Philadelphia.
The United Tribes would disagree; there were certainly borders and the arrival of most settlers broke multiple Indian treaties with the US government and many State governments. There simply weren't enough Federal troops or Indians to stop the "surge' of gold diggers or the settlers lured by promises of free land and "the Promised Lands"
Couple that with weak leadership and we lost a lot of soldiers and settlers and Indians but the government didn't give a damn, they had little respect for the indigenous peoples, not much more for the non-citizen settlers from all over Europe and only a wee bit for the federal troops fighting the Indians who were most likely to be Irish.
One out of 6 of George Custer's last troop were Irish men.
Explain that thought to me.
Who wants a lousy concentration camp in their town? Nazis...
Just curious.
If DHS builds a detention center in the town you live in, and the majority of citizens approve of it, would that not make all of the citizens of that town nazis?
The majority certainly seem to be emulating them. I wouldn't want to spend any time or money in a town like that. Perhaps rational Americans can put up an online map showing the 'plague' areas that are majority pro-authoritarian or pro-Christo-fascist. That way Americans can avoid spending any time or money in those fascist shitholes.
[deleted][✘]
The Golden Boy of TDS is Trump himself.
You constantly compare America to NAzi Germany.
Why are you working so hard to keep foreigners here? IF you actually believed all your Nazi comparisons, shouldn't you be advocating to get all the people possible out of the country, to spare them the Nazism you see everywhere?[✘]
The question really should be "Why are you working so hard to keep foreigners out?" after all that has been shown about immigrants positive benefits to society at large. In the aggregate they show up as a net benefit, Yet you keep harping on the outliers, the actual criminals, instead of the vast majority of foreign persons who are beneficial to society and culture.
Cry me a fucking river.
We have explained many, many times to far left wing loons that we do not want immigrants out of this country.
We welcome LEGAL migrants that went through the system to come here to enjoy a better life, but far left loons are OK with those that jumped the border, want priority to get citizenship, want Americans and legal migrants to pay for their lifestyle they demand.
They are also perfectly OK with illegal immigrants that are murderers, rapists, frauds, child molesters, human smugglers.
Why?
Because democrats need them for future votes.
Build them all in Minnesota. That way the people that love and protect them can visit them without having to drive far.
Go ahead. Naturally those detention centers should be located as far away from the southern border as possible. That's the standard for Big Government efficiency. No DOGE, no more.
If Trump plans to deport immigrants then why does he need so much warehouse space? Trump should be able to get these people out of the country faster by transferring them to Venezuelan detention centers. The oil companies are going to need cheap labor.
Too bad Trump is wasting taxpayer money on warehouses instead building border wall. Apparently Trump found Democrats' plans for a cheap-assed surveillance wall because that's what Trump is building along the southern border now. No more big, beautiful wall.
Are you sure Trump knows what the hell he is doing? Trump seems to be doing the Biden drift.
Well they keep having to learn the same lessons over and over again apparently.
Walls on the Texas side involve private property right to the rivers edge, the Gubmint has been tied up in court for decades...
Walls along Arizona in particular keep getting knocked out but the flooding that accompanies the annual monsoons, but the problem also exists in NM and CA.
Tribes own great stretches of the border and want the wildlife to be able to migrate...
Catch them and get them out so fast they won't need holding pens. Caught today and out tomorrow
Head 'em up, Move "em out! Rawhide
To hell with due process
Bigots don't want due process; they want white conservative Christian culture large and in charge. They don't give a fuck whose rights they have to stomp on to 'save' their fantasy 'white culture'.
All the due process they need. Have same type judge that approves photo radar tickets, and they ask for proof that the accused is not legal to be in the USA. Defendant is provided council like a public defender, case is decided or continued if time is needed for evidence they are legal to be here. Case tried quickly and if guilty they are deported right away if they were legal then they stay and are given proof and entered on computer list in case they are questioned again.
Due process does not need to be long