Resistance in both Democratic and Republican cities points to broader unease with the direction of immigration enforcement.
in communities across the political and geographic spectrum, as the administration moves to scale up its detention footprint to fuel its campaign to arrest, detain and deport the largest number of immigrants in modern U.
S. history., with around $45 billion specifically to expand immigration detention over four years — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving fast to lease and acquire warehouses and buildings across the United States with the aim of retrofitting them into detention spaces. ICE is alsoAn Immigration and Customs Enforcement worker stands outside a warehouse in Williamsport, Md., that's being converted into an immigration detention center with plans to hold 1,500 people, on March 9.ICE detainees have been held at more than 220 detention sites around the country, according to government data provided by ICE in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by NPR. These sites range from dedicated ICE facilities and private prisons to county jails, military bases and newly converted warehouses. Detainees are also being held temporarily in staging areas, hospitals and holding sites. The number of sites continues to grow.ICE's biggest detention operations are largely clustered in the southern United States. Just five states — Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Arizona and Georgia — account for just over 60% of the nation's more than 750,000 ICE detention book-ins. Texas had more than 200,000 book-ins across 115 facilities between President Trump taking office in January 2025 and mid-October 2025, the most book-ins of any state in the country.. That number had jumped to more than 72,000 by the end of January 2026. The administration's goal is to keep expanding detention space to keep up with arrests. Ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security aims to build bed space forimmigrants, a scale of mass detention not seen since the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans and nationals during World War II. And most detained noncitizens are clustered at a handful of centers. Of the more than 60,000 book-ins across Arizona, nearly half were at the Florence Staging Facility. Forty-five percent of the 93,105 book-ins across Louisiana were at the Alexandria Staging Facility." in which eight large detention centers holding between 7,500 and 10,000 people each are fed by 16 smaller regional processing centers holding 500 to 1,500 immigrants each. Theand in scores of towns across the U.S., residents are pushing back, citing costs and infrastructure worries, as well as zoning, political and even moral concerns. "They're getting the wrong people," says Donnie Dagenhart, who lives not far from a proposed ICE detention center near Williamsport, Md. Dagenhart, who owns a local construction company, says he supported Trump for years but has now soured on the president largely over how immigration is being enforced."Let's get the bad ones out. That's what we should be doing, but we're not. I just think we're living in a police state and it's getting worse," he says."Did you see the building?" he asks of the new detention site."It's huge.""This community has fought giants and has come out victorious," he told NPR member station NHPR."And it's just a testament to my neighbors and local leadership and the state leaders for taking a stand. Backlash erupted, too, in Oklahoma City in deep-red Oklahoma when local residents learned of plans to convert a vacant warehouse into a facility to process and temporarily house immigrants. Faced with strong opposition, DHS and ICEa proposed immigration detention center near Byhalia, Miss."I am all for immigration enforcement, but this site was meant for economic development and job creation. We cannot suddenly flood Byhalia with an influx of up to 10,000 detainees," Wicker wrote on X last month. Public outcry also stopped a planned detention facility in conservative Texas. The federal government planned to buy a 1 million-square-foot warehouse from Majestic Realty in Hutchins, Texas, and turn it into a holding center. But following weeks of pushback from community members and city leaders, the company decided not to sell or lease the facility to DHS. "We're grateful for the long-term relationship we have with Mayor Mario Vasquez and the City of Hutchins and look forward to continuing our work to find a buyer or lease tenant that will help drive economic growth," a Majestic Realty spokesperson told The largest detention facilities in the country are run by two for-profit, private companies, Geo Group and CoreCivic. Both companies reported more thanin revenue in 2025, an 8% and 18% increase, respectively, in growth year over year. A handful of other companies also have big DHS and ICE contracts to help guard, run and support ICE detention operations, including Akima Global Services and its sister company Akima Infrastructure Protection. The"A majority of these locations wouldn't pass for any other venue"that the move sparked frequent protests and community pushback. Hundreds of people swarmed Surprise's City Council meetings demanding that the city pass a resolution to make DHS and ICE publicly disclose operational plans.Protesters gather with signs condemning Immigration and Customs Enforcement's purchase of a warehouse in Roxbury, N.J., for use as an immigrant processing facility, on March 10.Advocates say reduced oversight and record numbers of detainees are a recipe for more sickness and death in custody."The abhorrent and worsening conditions in detention centers, gross negligence and a complete lack of oversight have contributed to yet another grim record for deaths in ICE custody," said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant rights defense organization. While there have been few to no oversight moves on the federal level, local leaders are taking action. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization representing the more than 1,400 mayors of cities with populations over 30,000, recently passed"A majority of these locations wouldn't pass for any other venue, even possibly for a homeless shelter," the Republican mayor of Columbia, S.C., Daniel Rickenmann, told NPR. The conference called for federal immigration agencies to"assure all those detained have access to legal assistance required by law; require all buildings where people are detained to meet local health and safety standards; obtain appropriate local zoning and building permit approvals to convert warehouses and other buildings to detention or deportation facilities." Rickenmann says he and fellow mayors have grave concerns about the rapidly expanding ICE detention system:"Are they sanitary? Do they have the beds? Do they have the facilities for restrooms? Do they have places that they can provide meals that are to standards that we would require anybody, including jails, to keep up with?" In a statement to NPR, ICE said new facilities would bring jobs, additional tax revenue and security to communities. On recently purchased warehouses in Roxbury, N.J., and Hagerstown, Md., the agency wrote:"These will not be warehouses — they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards. These sites have undergone community impact studies and a rigorous due diligence process to make sure there is no hardship on local utilities or infrastructure prior to purchase."Local officials NPR spoke with dispute the existence of any rigorous community impact studies for new ICE facilities. An industrial warehouse recently purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for use as a detention center is seen on February 10, 2026 in Social Circle, Georgia. Local officials have expressed frustration over the planned ICE detention facility.A through-line complaint across communities is lack of transparency. Representatives at all levels of government, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, complain they have been largely kept in the dark about DHS' plans. Local representatives in Oakwood, Ga., Baytown, Texas, and Highland Park, Mich., told NPR that they received no response from DHS when they inquired about facilities slated to be built in their communities. In Social Circle, Ga., local frustrations rose so high that city leaders barred water use by ICE's planned facility until the agency provides more clarity on its plans.Georgia Public Broadcasting."The lock is there until ICE indicates how water and sewer will be served without exceeding our limited infrastructure capacity." In Merrillville, Ind., reports that ICE intended to convert a vacant 275,000-square-foot warehouse into a detention facility caught local officials completely off guard. The town quickly passed a forceful resolution opposing the conversion and publicly criticized ICE for failing to inform local officials of the move. "We want to be clear that we've received no communication from any federal agency regarding the use of this property as a processing or detention facility, and the town has not approved or authorized any such use," Merrillville Town Council President Rick Bella said in an emailed statement to NPR. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said that the lack of communication from ICE, as well as from the private-sector companies, is especially concerning when coupled with reports of mistreatment and abuse. "Here in San Diego, our members of Congress are not permitted to access these facilities," Gloria said."Our local public health officials have also been turned away. And so when you look at what's happening in public with these detention efforts, they often become extremely chaotic. It makes you wonder what's happening behind closed doors and without, you know, transparency and accountability."In Oakwood, Ga., the mayor and City Council posted that while they support ICE's mission, they were concerned that the local government was not involved in the process of green-lighting the detention center or selecting its location. The sale was recently finalized, and Georgia Public BroadcastingOakwood City Manager B.R. White strongly criticized the detention center's placement next to two residential areas, an established subdivision and a building under construction, and warned that taxpayers would likely have to foot the bill, including an estimated $2.6 million in added sewer expenses alone. "I would have liked to see come in, sit down, tell us what their plans are and discuss with us how to resolve the issues and the tax losses to the community," White told NPR. He says the city has not received any communication from the federal government, so the city is left to deal with these issues on their own."It was an egregious overstep by the federal government," White said."'Get the ox and the cart out of the ditch service' is what we're having to do right now."Some places that aren't slated to have a facility have preemptively taken action. After reports that DHS was scoping out locations for new facilities in Missouri, the Jackson County Legislature approved a plan to ban immigration detention facilities. Legislator Manny Abarcathat it puts the county on the record as being against"the caging of people" even if the county doesn't legally have the authority to stop DHS.In Georgia, Charlton County Administrator Glenn Hull says the county will make about $230,000 this year from the detention center contract between GEO Group and the federal government — enough to pay the salaries of 20% of the county's employees.and funding for holiday festivals and events, even as he acknowledges the ethical and moral costs of profiting from people being forcefully separated from their loved ones, locked away and deported."I hate to say it, but if not here, then somewhere else," Hull admits."So you take advantage of what you have on your table. I hate to simplify it like that 'cause these are lives and families, but that's the reality of it." To determine where people detained by ICE were held, NPR analyzed data provided by ICE in response to a FOIA request by the Deportation Data Project. In the Deportation Data Project's original dataset, a book-in is referred to as a"stint." Most noncitizens have only one book-in per stay in detention, but some are transferred between multiple facilities. Each transfer to a new facility counts as a separate book-in, as does a return to a facility where the person had previously been booked. Facilities range from dedicated ICE centers to local jails and hospitals.
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