ICE Turn-key Detention Solicitation Covers Four AORs on 10-Year IDIQs; Deadline Extended to Sept 14

ICE’s Office of Acquisition Management issued RFP 70CDCR26R00000026, “Turn-key Detention Facilities,” as a Combined Synopsis/Solicitation, first posted to SAM.gov on August 28, 2026 (8:46 p.m. ET; August 29 UTC) with proposals due September 11. Amendment A0002, posted the evening of September 10, extended the proposal deadline to September 14, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET, and stated that a further amendment (A0003) would issue September 11 to incorporate the government’s answers to industry questions and revised attachments.

The solicitation covers four requirements, one per ERO Area of Responsibility: Requirement A (Denver), B (Miami), C (Philadelphia) — all non-IHSC-staffed — and D (Seattle), which is IHSC-staffed. ICE intends separate single-award IDIQ contracts, evaluated and awarded per facility, with one or more awards possible. Each contract carries a 120-month ordering period inclusive of a 60-day transition, plus a possible six-month extension under FAR 52.217-8. Contract type is a hybrid firm-fixed-price and labor-hour IDIQ. The notice was first posted August 28, 2026 (amended twice as A0001 on September 3) and is coded NAICS 561612, Security Guards and Patrol Services, with PSC S206 (Housekeeping — Guard), no set-aside — classification codes for a services buy, not construction.

These are contractor-provided facilities, but the RFP requires pricing under two models: a Contracted Detention Facility model, “under which the contractor provides and operates the facility,” and a Government-owned, contractor-operated/maintained model, “under which the Government owns the facility and the contractor operates and maintains it,” because “the Government may consider future acquisition of one of more awarded sites” (RFP Sections B.2 and L). The predecessor market-research notice (Sources Sought 70CDCR26RFI000020, published July 10, responses due July 17) states the requirement plainly: ICE “requires one or more Contractor Owned/Contractor-Operated detention facilities” in those same four AORs. The contractor furnishes the facility itself along with all personnel, management, equipment and services — custody and supervision, healthcare at the three non-IHSC sites, armed transportation, food service, commissary, video surveillance, intake and classification, emergency response, and operations and maintenance.

Two provisions are worth recording for what they oblige. The contractor must provide and maintain space for ICE, IHSC, OPLA, USCIS and EOIR — the immigration court’s own administrative footprint inside a privately owned detention facility. And performance must comply with ICE detention standards, ACA Adult Local Detention Facility standards, DHS PREA standards, the Architectural Barriers and Rehabilitation Acts, OSHA, and fire/life-safety and environmental requirements. A ten-year vehicle for privately owned facilities housing federal immigration proceedings is the structural fact here, and it arrives on a four-day extended clock.

What the primary source does NOT say, and what this corrects

This entry originally described a "$10 billion, 14-site construction solicitation" including Guantánamo Bay, Honolulu, Broadview (IL) and Batavia (NY), and flagged a reported clause “asserting that state law does not apply.” A direct pull of the SAM.gov notice text on 2026-09-12 refutes each of those:

• The solicitation states no fixed dollar ceiling. The $10 billion ceiling is not in this notice or the RFP; Section B.3 sets a $5,000,000 minimum per IDIQ and a formula-based maximum.
• No 14 sites. There are four AOR requirements. Guantánamo, Honolulu, Broadview and Batavia do not appear.
• No government construction program. This is a services acquisition for contractor-provided facilities — detention operations — though the RFP says ICE “will consider proposals involving new construction, major renovation, expansion, or conversion.”
• No preemption clause in the notice body or the 134-page RFP PDF (the performance work statements do contain one; see below). The notice’s language is a standard compliance line: performance shall comply with “Applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations, except where federal requirements control.” That is boilerplate restating ordinary federal supremacy in government contracting, not an assertion that state law does not apply. The characterization reported at tier 2 does not survive contact with the text.
• No mobile courtrooms. The only related language is the requirement to provide EOIR and other administrative space.

The $10B/14-site/Guantánamo material is real reporting about a different procurement — the government-owned-land construction program TIME documented in July, recorded separately at 2026-07-20–ice-rfp-14-additional-detention-sites-beyond-reengineering-plan. Two ICE detention procurements were running in parallel and the secondary coverage conflated them. This entry now describes only what 70CDCR26R00000026 actually is.

The July predecessor, and the bed counts. Canon already holds 2026-07-29–ice-issues-emergency-solicitation-5500-beds-four-cities — an ICE solicitation published 2026-07-29 for turnkey facilities in the same four locations: Seattle (1,500 beds), Denver (1,500), the Philadelphia field-office area (1,800) and Miami (700) — 5,500 beds total — each required to include five immigration courtrooms and ICE attorney offices, with a sub-week response window. Those bed counts do not appear in the September notice text and are recorded here from that entry, not from this solicitation.

That July posting, the July 10 Sources Sought (70CDCR26RFI000020) and this September RFP are three stages of one acquisition covering the same four AORs. It also supplies the substance behind this notice’s bare requirement that the contractor “provide and maintain required ICE, IHSC, OPLA, USCIS, EOIR … spaces”: in the July version that means five courtrooms per facility. Immigration courts inside privately owned detention buildings, on a ten-year vehicle — that is the structural fact this chain establishes, and it does not depend on any disputed figure.

The full solicitation PDF, read directly

The 134-page solicitation document (70CDCR26R00000026.pdf, retrieved from SAM.gov 2026-09-12 along with its 35 other attachments) settles both disputed points against the secondary reporting:

• The 134-page RFP PDF contains no preemption clause. The performance work statements (Attachments 01 and 02) do: “applicable or more stringent state or local laws or regulations shall not apply to the performance under this contract when they would directly or indirectly regulate, dictate, or control the contractor’s performance under these standards” (SAM.gov attachments; Project Saltbox, Aug. 29, 2026). Searching the full text for “state law,” “preempt,” “shall not apply” and “does not apply” returns six hits, all boilerplate: FAR provisions about bid-acceptance periods and E.O. 14057 applicability, and two references to successor liability varying “depending on State law.” Nothing asserts that state or local law does not apply to the facilities.
• There is no $10 billion ceiling and no fixed dollar ceiling. Section B.3 (Minimum and Maximum Quantities) sets a minimum of $5,000,000 per IDIQ over the ordering period and a maximum of “the calculated total value of the resultant IDIQ including the entire ordering period multiplied by 20%,” to be stated in each IDIQ award. The largest dollar figure anywhere in 134 pages is $10,000,000 — ten million — and it appears twice, both times as the FAPIIS reporting threshold in a standard offeror representation (“Federal contracts and grants with total value greater than $10,000,000”). That is a disclosure trigger about the bidder’s existing portfolio, not a value for this contract. The string “10,000,000,000” does not appear. Neither do “Guantanamo,” “Honolulu,” “Broadview,” “Batavia,” “Secure Housing Unit,” or “14 sites.”

The likeliest origin of the reported “$10B” is that threshold figure, read as billions.

Independent confirmation. A third source — a SAM.gov mirror listing the notice’s NAICS/PSC codes and attachment list — reports the same four requirements (Denver, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle), no dollar amount, no mention of Guantanamo, Honolulu, Broadview or Batavia, and no mention of state law or preemption. The mirror restates the notice’s metadata and is not an independent read.

Sourcing note. Everything in the first four paragraphs is quoted or paraphrased from the SAM.gov notice text for 70CDCR26R00000026 and its predecessor RFI 70CDCR26RFI000020, retrieved 2026-09-12 via the sam.gov search API. The contracting officer of record is Shane Crowl (ICE). Place of performance on the notice is coded to Colorado (zip 80111), consistent with Requirement A. The 134-page solicitation PDF and the attachment inventory WERE retrieved and searched; the individual PWS documents, the Attachment 15 pricing spreadsheet, and Amendment A0003 were not read in full: Attachment 01 A0001 (Turnkey Facility PWS, Non-IHSC), Attachment 02 A0001 (Turnkey Facility PWS, IHSC), and Attachment 15 (Turn-key Pricing Spreadsheet). A dollar ceiling could appear in the pricing spreadsheet; if a $10B figure is ever attached to this vehicle it must be sourced to the attachment that states it, not to the notice.

Update, 2026-09-17. Amendment A0003 posted 2026-09-12, 10:23 a.m. ET (14:23 UTC), the same day this entry’s prior text was written (its content was not yet retrieved when that text was drafted). A0003’s description text is procedural, not substantive: it “incorporate[s] revised attachments based upon questions received” — the PWS documents (non-IHSC and IHSC), two facility-specific-requirements attachments, the government’s Q&A response document, the Requirement B transportation-routes attachment, and the pricing spreadsheet — and states “all other terms and conditions remain unchanged.” The response deadline was NOT moved again by A0003; it remains the A0002 date, 2026-09-14, 5:00 p.m. ET, confirmed directly against the SAM.gov API on 2026-09-17 (three days after that date passed). SAM.gov’s own modification counter reads 4 (the two A0001 postings three minutes apart on 2026-09-03, A0002, and A0003) — fully accounted for, no unexplained fifth modification. No award, no cancellation (isCanceled: false), no set-aside change (NONE, unchanged) as of 2026-09-17. A parallel USAspending.gov query for ICE/DHS IDV-type awards confirms the query mechanism works (it correctly returns a 2026-08-11 CoreCivic IDV for an unrelated Appleton, MN facility) while returning zero results keyed to this solicitation number — a validated absence of an award, not a tooling failure. GAO’s bid-protest search remains blocked (HTTP 403, Akamai) on three independent attempts; no protest confirmed or ruled out. No press coverage of the A0002/A0003 amendments or of Phase 1 closing was found in a web search on 2026-09-17; the extensive press on this RFP (NBC News, Time, Axios, King5, Spotlight PA, Project Saltbox) predates the extension and still reports the original Sept 11 framing.