Feds turn to prisons, local jails to hold immigrants
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Federal agents detain a man during an immigration operation in Denver on Wednesday. Photo: Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
The Trump administration's scramble to find more detention space for unauthorized immigrants has led the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin holding some of those who've been arrested, Axios has learned.
- The move comes as President Trump's team already is pressing local law enforcement agencies to help house immigration detainees.
Why it matters: Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have ramped up under Trump, but immigration detention facilities are packed — and top Trump aides are getting impatient.
- Congress has given ICE enough money to hold roughly 40,000 immigrants in detention, and the average number detained last month was already near capacity.
- Meanwhile, Trump's plans to deport "millions and millions" of unauthorized immigrants is leading to as many as 1,000 arrests a day — below the administration's goals but far more than the system can hold in detention.
- That's led the administration to send some detainees linked to crimes to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arrange for several other countries to accept detainees, and continue the "catch and release" program that Trump has vowed to end.
The intrigue: Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and an architect of the president's immigration policy, is demanding that top ICE officials find money to open up more detention space, sources familiar with the situation told Axios.
- Border czar Tom Homan has said ICE is "doing a great job, but they've got to do more."
- The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond to a request for comment.
Zoom in: Besides the federal prison system, officials are turning to local law enforcement agencies to help hold immigrants who've been arrested but not yet deported.
- Homan has asked sheriffs across the country to rent out space in their local jails to detain immigrants. He made the pitch last weekend at the National Sheriffs' Association convention in Washington, according to a person in the meeting.
During the first Trump administration in 2018, immigration and federal prison officials struck an agreement for 1,600 beds, according to the AP — an arrangement that led to allegations some detainees were mistreated.
- The Bureau of Prisons won't say how many beds it might provide now, or where.
- Trump plans to dramatically increase the detention capacity at Guantanamo Bay to 30,000 people. But that will take a while.
- In 2021, a contract request to run the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay advertised holding about 20 people per day with a capacity of 120.
What to watch: Senate leaders are citing the need for more beds and border security resources as a reason to move faster on a budget bill to provide tens of billions of dollars more for border security.
- The alternative, officials say, is to include the money in a larger budget package that also would include Trump's tax priorities — a plan that likely would take longer to clear Congress.
- "The president's doing everything he needs to do on the border to secure it like he said he was going to do," said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who said he's in contact with the administration and Homan on this issue.
- "For us, it's the funding side of it. ... If we can't get one big beautiful (budget) bill done, we may have to go with a two-step option just simply to get the border part of it in."
