- Immigrant Times
- Jan 19
- 6 min read
Immigrant detention reaches record levels in Trump’s second term
As detention expands rapidly, internal and external oversight is reduced. Members of the US Congress have been blocked from conducting surprise inspections despite having statutory authority.
The Immigrant Times reviews the American Immigration Council’s January 2026 report*
Overcrowded reception facilities at a US immigrant detention centre. President Trump visits a detention centre in Florida, which has been dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’. (Photo: Reuters)
January 2026: The American Immigration Council’s January 2026 report, Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump’s Second Term, documents what it describes as the fastest and largest expansion of immigration detention capacity in US history. According to the report, when President Trump returned to office in January 2025, roughly 40,000 people were held in immigration detention. By December, that figure had climbed to more than 68,000, an increase of nearly 75 per cent in less than one year. The system is now reportedly capable of holding around 70,000 detainees daily, a level not previously reached in the modern era of US immigration enforcement.
This analysis is based on data compiled by the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based non-profit policy organisation that researches US immigration law and enforcement practices.
The scale of expansion is not limited to population growth. The report states that leaked internal plans from early in Trump’s second term envisioned nearly 108,000 detention beds by January 2026, a target not fully achieved but still shaping infrastructure planning. With new congressional funding streams in place, the American Immigration Council (AIC) calculates that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency could ultimately expand capacity to approximately 135,000 detention beds — more than three times the size of the system when Trump took office in 2025.
Detention as a central enforcement strategy
The report argues that detention has shifted from a supporting enforcement tool to a central pillar of deportation strategy. Executive Order 14165, signed on Trump’s first day back in office, declared that it is US policy to detain migrants “to the maximum extent authorised by law”. A companion order, Executive Order 14159, directed federal agencies to deploy “all legally available resources” towards detention capacity and enforcement expansion.
These directives triggered rapid changes inside ICE operations. According to ICE data cited in the report, discretionary releases from detention fell by 87 per cent between January and late November 2025. Release decisions that previously allowed migrants to await court proceedings outside detention were sharply curtailed, forcing many individuals to pursue bond hearings before immigration judges or remain confined while cases moved forward.
The result, the Council finds, has been a sharp imbalance between releases and deportations. By November 2025, for every one person released from detention, more than 14 people were deported directly from ICE custody, a dramatic increase from a ratio of 1.6 deportations per release in December 2024.
Changing profile of detainees
One of the report’s most striking findings concerns the changing demographic profile of those held in detention. Historically, most ICE detainees were either migrants apprehended at the border or individuals transferred from local jails following criminal arrests. That pattern shifted rapidly in 2025.
The report documents a 600 per cent increase in “at-large” arrests — enforcement actions carried out in communities rather than in jails — during Trump’s first nine months in office. Simultaneously, the number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention rose by 2,450 per cent. By November 2025, more than 40 per cent of those detained after ICE interior arrests had no prior criminal record, compared with just 6 per cent at the start of the year.
These shifts were driven by expanded use of collateral arrests, roving patrols, and large-scale worksite raids. The report cites federal court rulings that found some of these roving patrol practices amounted to racial profiling. However, enforcement was allowed to resume following temporary stays issued by higher courts.
The report also references internal enforcement directives and public reporting, suggesting that arrest quotas became a priority metric. In late May 2025, senior administration officials were reported to have urged ICE leadership to increase daily arrest numbers to approximately 3,000 per day, a move that coincided with intensified enforcement operations at worksites and public gathering locations.
Expansion of mandatory detention
Beyond arrest practices, the legal framework governing detention eligibility was also reshaped. Traditionally, most immigrants detained by ICE could request bond hearings before immigration judges. That changed significantly after the passage of the Laken Riley Act in January 2025.
The law expanded mandatory detention to cover additional criminal categories and, for the first time, allowed mandatory detention to apply to individuals who had merely been arrested, not convicted, for certain offences. Subsequent decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals further broadened the scope of mandatory detention by reclassifying migrants who entered between ports of entry as categorically ineligible for bond.
The report notes that these legal interpretations have been widely challenged. More than 300 federal judges reviewed the administration’s expanded detention rationale, with only 14 supporting the government’s interpretation. Despite ongoing litigation, immigration judges across the country continued to deny bond hearings under the new precedent as of late 2025.
Infrastructure development and the private sector role
To accommodate growing detainee populations, ICE dramatically expanded its detention footprint. Between January and November 2025, the number of facilities used for immigration detention nearly doubled, rising from 114 to 218 sites nationwide.
Much of this expansion occurred through contracts with county jails and previously shuttered private prisons. Major private prison operators, including CoreCivic and GEO Group, reopened large-scale facilities that had been closed under earlier federal prison reform efforts. The report notes that approximately 90 per cent of ICE detainees in early 2025 were held in facilities owned or operated by private prison companies, highlighting the increasingly privatised nature of the detention system.
New facilities also included tent-based detention centres on military installations. At Fort Bliss in Texas, ICE opened a large temporary detention complex designed to hold up to 5,000 people daily, with projected operating costs exceeding $1.2 billion over two years. Additional military sites in New Jersey and Indiana were identified for similar projects.
State-level detention initiatives
The report highlights Florida’s creation of a state-run detention facility, dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, as a major policy departure. Unlike traditional detention centres operated under ICE contracts, Florida’s facility was established through a state-run model linked to the federal 287(g) enforcement programme.
Legal challenges quickly followed, with courts initially blocking operations before allowing the facility to resume activity pending further review. The Council describes the model as legally untested and administratively chaotic, raising questions about accountability and oversight responsibilities between state and federal authorities.
Oversight erosion
As detention expanded, internal oversight mechanisms were sharply reduced. The report documents staffing cuts of more than 85 per cent at the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and more than 90 per cent at the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.
External oversight also weakened. According to the Council, members of Congress were blocked from conducting surprise inspections of detention facilities, despite statutory authority to do so. Combined with rapid facility expansion and growing reliance on temporary detention infrastructure, these changes created what the report describes as an increasingly opaque detention system.
Financial scale and long-term implications
The detention expansion has been underwritten by unprecedented funding. Congress authorised $45 billion for immigration detention through fiscal year (FY) 2029, in addition to the $4 billion allocated for detention in the FY 2025 budget alone. Together, these appropriations provide ICE with nearly $15 billion per year for detention-related operations over the next several years.
The Council warns that this level of funding could permanently reshape the federal immigration enforcement apparatus. If capacity projections are realised, immigration detention could rival or exceed the size of the federal criminal prison system — a structural shift with long-term fiscal, legal, and humanitarian consequences.
Fazit
Rather than representing a temporary enforcement surge, the report portrays Trump’s second-term detention expansion as a foundational restructuring of US immigration policy. Through executive orders, legislative changes, infrastructure investments, and funding commitments, detention has been elevated into the central enforcement mechanism of the federal deportation system.
Whether courts ultimately uphold the new detention framework or Congress revisits the scale of long-term funding, the report makes clear that immigration detention has entered a new phase — one defined not only by growth, but by institutional permanence and political entrenchment.
Sources
American Immigration Council (January 2026): Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump’s Second Term
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention statistics
US Executive Orders 14165 and 14159
US Congressional budget appropriations for immigration detention
*About the American Immigration Council
The American Immigration Council is a Washington-based non-profit organisation that conducts research, policy analysis, and data reporting on US immigration law, enforcement practices, and migrant integration.
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