ICE 'Detention Reengineering Initiative' Targets 100,000 Beds by Sept 2026 via 24 Warehouse-Converted Facilities

ICE’s “Detention Reengineering Initiative” targets a detention capacity of 100,000 beds by September 30, 2026, built around 24 warehouse-converted facilities: 16 “processing centers” of 1,000–1,500 beds (designed for 3–7 day stays) and 8 large-scale centers of 7,000–10,000 beds. The buildout is backed by $45 billion of an $85 billion DHS appropriation. Counties enter through GEO Group and piggybacked U.S. Marshals Service contracts — Charlton County, Georgia earns roughly $230,000 per year from its arrangement, equivalent to about 20 percent of the county’s employee salaries. Communities in Jackson County (MO), Marana (AZ), and elsewhere are organizing to block siting, and the ACLU documents record in-custody deaths as the expansion accelerates.

This operationalizes the $45 billion detention appropriation set in the 2025 budget reconciliation (2025-07-04–obbba-ice-detention-appropriations-45-billion-fy2029-funding-mechanism) and formalizes the warehouse-conversion model documented by HRW (2026-04-09–hrw-details-ice-warehouse-detention-abuses) and protested in the Communities Not Cages national day of action (2026-04-25–communities-not-cages-national-day-of-action-ice-warehouse-detention). The warehouse-as-detention image — the logistics shed repurposed as a holding camp — is the literal infrastructure of the warehouse-prison-camps pattern. FOIA of the initiative’s procurement documents is needed to confirm the full facility list and per-site siting criteria.