DHS Awards Up to $7.3B in IDIQ Contracts for ICE Detention Expansion Across Five States

The Department of Homeland Security signed five Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) construction contracts on September 21, 2026, worth up to $7.3 billion — part of a $10 billion program ceiling — to expand ICE-owned detention capacity in New York, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and California. The awards are the centerpiece of the ICE Detention Reengineering Initiative, which aims to replace the current patchwork of county and private intergovernmental service agreements with 34 government-owned facilities, including 16 warehouse-conversion processing centers holding 1,000–1,500 people each with average stays of 3–7 days. DHS separately announced expansion plans for Colorado, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Because IDIQ agreements establish a construction framework rather than obligating all funds immediately, the $7.3 billion figure represents a contract ceiling, not guaranteed spend.

The award lands the same week the corpus documents ICE issuing a request for mobile “detention van” services in Pennsylvania (2026-09-23–ice-mobile-detention-vans-geo-group-2026), and follows a summer in which the Reengineering Initiative’s original warehouse-conversion strategy stalled program-wide over litigation and permitting (2026-08-19–ice-detention-reengineering-initiative-stalls-program-wide-11-purchased-sites). The five-state IDIQ award is the administration’s next capital commitment after that stall — a pivot from conversion of existing structures to purpose-built, government-owned capacity, financed through contract vehicles broad enough to absorb further site selection without new congressional appropriation.