Federal officials say Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is scaling back a plan that would have used large warehouses to hold people for immigration detention. Multiple outlets report that ICE is retreating from plans tied to holding up to 10,000 people on a single site, and that it is moving away from a broader, rapid expansion effort associated with former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $38 billion detention-capacity proposal.
According to the reports, the change involves offloading some of the warehouses that were purchased for the detention initiative. The coverage indicates that ICE’s approach shifts away from the warehouse model described in the earlier plan, rather than continuing as originally outlined. While the articles agree on the retreat from the large-capacity, single-site warehouse concept and the decision to dispose of some acquired properties, they do not provide extensive detail across sources about the number of warehouses affected, the timing of the offloading, or alternative detention locations.
The reports present the decision as a departure from the warehouse-based expansion strategy included in the $38 billion effort to increase detention capacity this year.
