ICE Wants to Stash People in Amazon-style Warehouses

Last April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons said he wanted to see an immigration detention system that runs “like Prime, but for human beings.” It was a preview of the human rights abuses that would come under Trump. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is pursuing plans to cage people in dozens of massive warehouses across the country in what they’re calling their “Detention Reengineering Initiative.”

With ICE’s track record of abuse and deaths in their already massive immigration detention system, this plan is an imminent threat to life, due process, and democracy.

ICE’s Warehouses are Inhumane

According to an ICE memo detailing the warehouse project:

• DHS places the price tag for this project at $38.3 billion – nearly 10 times ICE’s entire 2024 detention budget, which comes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
• Their plans would add 92,600 new ICE-owned “beds” to the immigration detention system. To put things in perspective, there are roughly 68,000 people in ICE detention as of February 7. One year ago, that number was around 41,000.
• ICE is planning on getting these sites up and running by this fall, with some sites planned to open as soon as next month.
• There is broad bipartisan opposition to these warehouses in all the cities and towns where they are slated to open.
• According to ICE, this is the future of immigration detention in the United States.

The “Detention Reengineering Project” revolves around three different types of warehouse camps:

• The first are “large-scale detention facilities.” According to the February 12 memo, there are eight facilities that have been identified as “mega-centers.” These mass detention camps will house anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 people for up to 60 days. However, we know that ICE has a habit of keeping people (including kids) detained for far longer than they claim. The sheer size of these facilities is shocking – far above the largest existing immigration detention facility, which has a capacity of 5,000.
• The second type of site is the “regional processing center.” These sites have capacities ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 people and are designed for shorter stays (3 to 7 days). They will primarily serve as holding hubs for people slated for deportation or transfer.
• The final category is “turnkey sites.” ICE plans to buy out 10 sites where their Enforcement and Removal Operations are already operating and use them to further balloon ICE-owned detention capacity.

DHS published a floorplan for its site in Social Circle, Georgia, alongside documents outlining their plans for the facility, to the concerns of city officials. The very concept of warehousing “unwanted” human beings is an outrage, but the government’s blueprints for how to bring this plan to life is nightmarish; it doesn’t take a human rights attorney to see that they’re inhumane and unethical.

How Communities are Fighting Back

The capacity of some of these proposed warehouses would dwarf the population of local towns. Take Tremont, Pennsylvania for example: the warehouse detention camp proposed there would grow the population from 1,672 to 9,172 – a nearly 450 percent increase.

Despite how the warehouse would affect the local infrastructure – including zoning, sewage systems, and emergency services – reports and conversations with local organizers indicate that there has been virtually no coordination or communication between ICE and officials in these towns. In fact, the response on the ground has been overwhelmingly negative, and many residents and officials are pushing back:

• Byhalia, Mississippi: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) wrote to former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to oppose the planned warehouse purchase, arguing it would “strain the existing local infrastructure and foreclose on economic opportunities better suited for [the] site.”
• Roxbury, NJ: The majority-Republican township council voted unanimously to oppose a planned 1,500-capacity warehouse.
• Merrillville, IN: The Merrillville Town Council unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the warehouse site. In its statement, the council noted it had received absolutely no notice from ICE regarding its intention to build a massive prison in their backyard.

What You Can Do to Stop ICE from Building More Warehouses

Congress has directly enabled this “reengineering” project through the unprecedented amount of money given to ICE in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. These warehouses – places no human being should ever be expected to live – are being bought and retrofitted into massive detention camps with money that could have gone to repairing roads, building hospitals, or investing in our schools. Instead, tens of thousands of people will be crammed inside these buildings, as if they are products to be shipped off across the world at a moment’s notice.

Like Amazon Prime, but for human beings. And we’re paying for it.

But this plan doesn’t have to become reality. From local ordinances to public pressure campaigns on the companies selling these properties, communities have been able to fight back. Reach out to your local elected official to find out about warehouses in your town, and tell your Member of Congress to vote NO on more funding for detention expansion.