ICE planning to expand immigration detention in Texas and other states, documents show
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, and recently obtained documents reveal that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been making plans to expand immigration detention in Texas and other states since before he won the election.
The documents were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit filed earlier this year.
They show that ICE issued a Request for Information for “Multi-State Detention Facility Support” to private prison and logistics services vendors earlier this year. The deadline to send responses was June 23.
“What these FOIA requests revealed is especially concerning, since ICE detention facilities have historically disregarded the health, dignity, and constitutional rights of migrants,” said Adriana Piñon, legal director for the ACLU of Texas. “Texas’ diverse communities deserve resources, like better schools and access to health care, to help them flourish, not more immigration officials splintering our vibrant migrant communities and jailing people in inhumane conditions.”
Three companies — CoreCivic, the GEO Group and the Management & Training Corporation — sent responses expressing their interest in providing detention services in Texas.
On June 21, Tennessee-based CoreCivic submitted information about a facility it operated in Dilley, Texas, to support ICE’s operations out of its field office in Harlingen.
ICE terminated the contract for that facility on June 10, citing cost concerns. Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s director of public affairs, confirmed that the company no longer operates that facility. Immigration advocates have pointed to abusive conditions at the facility, including a 19-month-old migrant child who died after leaving the facility in 2018, which sparked an investigation into allegations of abuse and neglect.
CoreCivic also submitted information about two facilities it operates in New Mexico that fall under the jurisdiction of ICE’s El Paso field office. Critics have denounced “inhumane conditions” at those facilities.
Gustin told the Star-Telegram in an email that all of its immigration detention facilities “operate with a significant amount of oversight and accountability.”
“The services we provide help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone — to help manage unprecedented humanitarian crises, dramatically improve the standard of care for vulnerable people, and meet other critical needs efficiently and innovatively,” he said. “These are problems the American public has made clear they want fixed.”
The GEO Group also sent responses stating it could provide services to ICE’s Harlingen and El Paso field offices.
ICE redacted the attachments containing the information submitted by the CoreCivic, the GEO Group and MTC, releasing only the emails by which they were sent.
Other companies that submitted information were Kastel Enterprises and Active Deployment Systems, which provide logistics and temporary facilities services for emergency response and other situations.
The GEO Group, MTC, Kastel Enterprises and Active Deployment Systems did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ICE Request for Information also sought responses from companies to provide services for its field offices in California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, and Washington state.
