US Reveals $38 Billion Plan to Transform How It Detains Migrants

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Bloomberg

February 13, 2026 at 1:14 PM EST
Updated on February 13, 2026 at 1:34 PM EST


The Trump administration is moving ahead with a $38.3 billion plan to remake the US immigration detention system, in a sweeping expansion that officials say will streamline operations and speed deportations. The plan, known as the Detention Reengineering Initiative, calls for acquiring and renovating eight large-scale detention centers, adding 16 processing sites and taking control of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement already operates.

The largest facilities will have the capacity to hold as many as 10,000 people, primarily for international removals. “This new model will allow ICE to create an efficient detention network by reducing the total number of contracted detention facilities in use while increasing total bed capacity, enhancing custody management, and streamlining removal operations,” according to documents published on the New Hampshire government’s website. The Washington Post first reported the news of the plans.

As part of its broader detention overhaul since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, the administration has begun purchasing warehouse buildings across the country with plans to convert them into immigration detention centers. The purchases have drawn concerns from local communities and political leaders from Arizona to Texas and Maryland.

According to the documents, the agency said the new network will increase bed capacity by 92,600 and is expected to be fully implemented by November. The estimated $38.3 billion overhaul would be funded through congressional allocations under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to the document.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-13/trump-administration-reveals-38-3-billion-ice-detention-plan?srnd=phx-politics

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No paywall (gift)

That whole thing needs to be repealed and defunded.

[Easterncedar]

1. Just think how many lives could be SAVED with $38B

Horrifying, evil waste

[Thomas Hurt]

2. "According to the documents, the agency said the new network will increase bed capacity by 92,600"

Since when do detention centers have beds?

[bucolic_frolic]

3. I thought The Wall was going to stop everyone in their tracks

This seems highly inefficient, but AI and detention are the only things keeping the economy alive.

[Vinca]

4. I imagine these same immigrants might have generated $38 billion in revenue for the US if left alone.

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. This money is to build concentration camps

The cities where they are built will eventually go into history alongside Dachau, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Ravenbruck, et al, if the are built.

[Firestorm49]

6. Do you believe that the centers are solely for immigration processing? I don't. I remember Hitler.

[bluestarone]

8. Thinking your way here

[underpants]

7. Moooo

Sounds like a massive meat processing plant.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. "Soylent Green"

[underpants]

10. Yes. Exactly.

What’s sad is that the Epstein Class Broligarchy wouldn’t want keep all those useless people alive these days.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Ironically, the film's "future" would take place in 2022!

[twodogsbarking]

12. When younger I doubted two phrases. Anyone can be President. One person can make a difference. My bad.

[Bayard]

13. I'm suprised inmates actually get beds

Remember trump's first go round where kids in cages were sleeping on foil blankets on the floor?

Wonder if this plot will be affected by the hold on DHS funds.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

14. So I'm not seeing who the CONTRACTORS are getting this $38 Billion

in government appropriations in either the article or the official document. Am I missing it, or is any reference to the companies (and their oligarchs) involved, and whether they are major MAGA contributors, missing? I'm sure it's just an oversight.

Eat the rich.

[jmbar2]

16. GEO and Core Civic groups - companies lobbied by Pamela (WELL WHATABOUT!?) Bondi

Who profits from a $45 billion investment in immigrant detention?
Two companies are likely to gain the most from the more than tripling of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s annual detention budget: CoreCivic and the GEO Group.

“We are in an unprecedented environment, with rapid increases in federal detention populations nationwide,” CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger said in the company’s second quarter earnings call.

CoreCivic’s revenue from ICE last quarter went up by 17%, considering the “highest detention populations ever recorded by ICE, which has been our largest customer for over 10 years,” Hininger said.

ICE pays roughly $165 a day for each person held in detention. More arrests mean more money for these companies.

And that’s exactly what GEO Group’s George Zoley said happened during the second quarter earnings call, citing the “highest level of ICE utilization in our company's history.”

Now, they’re making thousands more beds available as billions in new funding comes through. “The intensity has really picked up,” Hininger said.

Under new contracts with ICE, private prison companies are filling up detention centers in Texas, California, New Jersey, Michigan, and Georgia, bringing in millions in revenue. https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/08/18/who-profits-from-detaining-immigrants

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Bondi failed to identify every single one of these as potential conflicts of interest:

Employment as a partner at Ballard Partners: Bondi did not list her current role as a lobbyist as a potential conflict of interest, nor any of the specific work she’s done for her clients that might implicate her role as the chief federal law enforcement officer.

She’s lobbied on behalf of more than 30 different clients, including corporations like Amazon and Uber, government contractors like private prisons, and the government of Qatar.

Lobbying on behalf of private prisons: Bondi lobbied for The GEO Group, a private prison company that has faced criticism for safety violations, providing inadequate health care, and poor management practices.

These actions have negatively impacted the welfare and rights of incarcerated individuals and immigration detainees, and The GEO Group stands to earn hundreds of millions of dollars during the Trump Administration, as ICE is its largest source of revenue.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/pam-bondis-extensive-lobbying-for-wealthy-special-interests-and-foreign-government-poses-serious-conflict-of-interest

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

17. Thought so. (n/t)

[FakeNoose]

15. Hopeful immigrants will come here with their children, and they'll be sent away without their children

[kiranon]

18. If you think this is just for migrants - have a bridge to sell you

Expect these concentration camps will also hold dissidents and other religious or ethic minorities or the press, the dissident church members and so on. This huge development has to stop.

[LudwigPastorius]

19. Yep, ICE will meet its quotas any way it can.

[patphil]

20. That's an awful lot of capacity. are they planning on using them for other people other than immigrants?

[pat_k]

21. We are in the depths of hell.

Destructive immigration policies and the exponential expansion of the private immigrant prison system was intolerably immoral back in 2009*

Is there something worse than the 9th circle of hell? If so, we are heading there.

This MUST be STOPPED.

*See Tom Barry's excellent article:
A Death in Texas: Where profits, poverty, and immigration converge.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/death-texas/