ICE Detention Is About To Get So Much Worse
Sources
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Transcript
Hi it’s Monday, February 9th, 2026, you’re tuned into Why, America? I’m your lawyer friend Leeja Miller in Minneapolis. 2025 was the deadliest year on record for ICE detainees. Two cases of measles have been confirmed at the Dilly family detention center in Texas. DHS has recently partnered with the Navy to buy up massive industrial buildings to be turned into immigrant detention facilities. A few headlines have cropped up over the last week that, taken by themselves, are pretty horrific but I wanted to connect some dots so we can get a bigger picture of what’s going on in the increasingly opaque world of immigrant detention in the United States. Reportedly over 70,000 people are in immigrant detention in the US right now, an unprecedented number and a 75% increase since the beginning of the Trump regime. And by all accounts, that number will continue to grow as ICE uses its bloated budget, thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, to erect more and more hastily built facilities to shove people into under abhorrent conditions. The increased funding through 2029 along with newly uncovered government contracts through the Navy usually meant for foreign disasters, could create, as one reporter put it, a “ghost network” of concentration camps on US soil. The work is already well under way but the worst is likely still to come for the tens of thousands of people–immigrants and US citizens alike–who are being disappeared from our streets and secreted away to facilities that the Trump regime doesn’t want anyone to know about.
AD
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Before we continue let me clarify two things because the trolls in my comments section are fucking idiots. First, being inside the United States illegally is not a crime. It is a civil offense. It is a misdemeanor to enter into the United States, cross the border, illegally. So is speeding or running a stop sign. But many people who are undocumented in the United States entered legally and their visa expired or the Trump regime revoked their protected status. That is not a crime. That is a civil offense–no prison time, no criminal prosecution. While the Trump regime claims it is removing the worst of the worst criminal aliens from our streets, immigrant detention centers are not part of the criminal justice process. Immigration detention is categorized as civil detention, meaning people detained there are not meant to be detained as punishment. It is simply a place to hold people while their immigration case moves through the system. The system is incredibly horribly backlogged, so that can mean people stay in immigration detention for months or more. Some may be able to make bond and be released pending their hearings, but many cannot afford bond. Because this is not criminal court or imprisonment, people moving through the immigration system have the right to an attorney but one will NOT be provided for them, they have to access and pay for one themselves. This means that MANY people moving through the system are self-represented, they do not have attorneys. This includes unaccompanied children. So there are 5 year olds just appearing in immigration court without lawyers, representing themselves.
According to DHS’s own data, which I think any data coming out of the federal government at this time should be taken with a grain of salt but even by their own data only 5% of detainees have been convicted of violent crimes. About 26% of detained immigrants had a criminal conviction–though it’s unclear for what crimes, again speeding is a misdemeanor and technically a criminal conviction. And another 26% have pending criminal charges–again remember the whole guilty until proven innocent thing, this could mean they have an outstanding traffic ticket or charges that they will be acquitted for or bogus trumped up charges because the regime is quick to charge anyone with “assaulting” an ICE officer if they even look at them the wrong way. So, again, 5% of detainees have been convicted of violent crimes. 95% of detainees have never been convicted of violent crimes and they are being held in detention centers in civil detention not meant to be punishment. Just keep that in mind as I’m talking about this.
Okay and second for the idiot trolls, the US constitution does NOT just apply to citizens. The 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures says it protects PEOPLE not just CITIZENS. The 5th and 14th amendment due process protections extend to PEOPLE not just citizens. So shut the fuck up.
Okay now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into connecting the dots between the headlines. First headline: Congress is continuing to fight over DHS funding. Democrats are holding out, seeking greater regulation of DHS officers, requiring identification, mask removal, judicial warrants, etc. And while I do think Democrats should use this little leverage they have and milk it for all that it’s worth, in the grand scheme of things when it comes to ICE detention facilities, this fight is irrelevant. The Big Beautiful Bill the spending bill passed last year included $65 billion for ICE to build more detention facilities through 2029. That funding has already passed, this DHS appropriations bill is separate and a fraction of the size of the funding provided for in the Big Beautiful Bill.
Increased funding for ICE has also led to hiring of more ICE officers and expansion of operations to include more raids and more expedited removals. Typically, expedited removals are reserved for the worst of the worst, but because the Trump regime has deemed all immigrants the worst of the worst that policy has expanded so now 5 year olds can be set for expedited removal, which provides for even fewer rights and less access to due process than is offered under the regular removal process. Those increased operations have led to an increase in immigrant detention. As I said, a 75% increase, from around 40,000 before Trump took office to over 70,000 people in immigrant detention now. The type of detention varies–in the case happening here in Minneapolis where there’s a surge of officers arresting everyone from plumbers to protesters, there are shorter-term holding facilities where people are only meant to be held for 12 hours or so while their case is assessed and a longer-term holding situation is identified. Or, if you’re a citizen protester, until you’re randomly released some hours later with little explanation. Then there are larger facilities meant to house immigrants for longer periods. DHS may hold immigrants while their case plays out and once a judge orders that an immigrant be removed DHS must remove that person within 90 days or provide a good reason why they’re just holding onto the person. The system for holding immigrants is really haphazard–sometimes it’s local jails renting out their space to DHS, sometimes DHS facilities are run by private prison companies, sometimes the facilities are owned and operated by the federal government and sometimes, like in the case of Alligator Alcatraz, the facilities are wholly owned and operated by the state. There is technically a guide that says the conditions under which immigrants are required to be held–they are required to be provided shelter, food, water, recreation area, a sanitary environment, and access to healthcare. Again, reminder, this is not imprisonment, this is not punishment, this is civil confinement. But these guidelines have never been codified into law and are therefore just suggestions that are self-enforced by DHS itself.
So it’s a haphazard system already that has seen a 75% increase in detainees, there is a 3.5 MILLION case backlog in immigration court, which is why expedited removal is so enticing for the Trump regime. If you deny people due process then you don’t need to hire more immigration judges, you just need to put people on planes and get them out of the country as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, again as I said those pesky constitutional due process requirements do apply to noncitizens, so that has gotten the Trump regime into a lot of hot water. So they need beds to put people in, even the ones they’re hoping to shove on planes as quickly as possible. Which means there’s a bottleneck problem in Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s grand plan to arrest 3000 immigrants a day. Even with the increase to 100,000 immigrant detention center beds that Trump has promised, with 3000 arrests per day, which is also promised but not yet realized, those beds will fill up in a little over a month, further requiring an expedited removal process to keep beds available. As it is, even without reaching the 3000 per day promise, the existing facilities are incredibly overcrowded, with reports of horrific conditions inside. And so the Trump regime is attempting to solve that problem by buying up abandoned warehouses that they can turn into detention facilities. These are like Amazon style giant ecommerce warehouses that DHS wants to throw some cages in and call it a day. Their other tactic is using military bases, some of which were the very sites of Japanese internment camps 80 years ago, and erecting soft-sided tents often in the arid desert to hold people.
According to reporting from Bloomberg, the Trump administration has attempted to buy up giant warehouses in at least 2 dozen communities, many of which have seen huge backlash from the community, including in Republican districts. Here in Minnesota, a planned warehouse detention center was scrapped in Shakopee, a suburb south of the Twin Cities, after local residents protested the sale. But protesting the creation of these facilities is like playing whack-a-mole. The federal government is intent on finding the space and there are a lot of giant warehouses that are owned by people who would LOVE to cash in on a sweet sweet government contract. That is a common theme you will see throughout this discussion–there is a LOT of money to be made on government contracts for these detention center facilities. According to Bloomberg quote “On Jan. 16, the administration paid $102 million for a site near Hagerstown, Maryland, according to a local court filing. A week later, the government paid $70 million in cash for a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona. The price tags — roughly in line with the industry average for the warehouse market — cover just the acquisition of the sites, which are currently empty shells. ICE still has to pay companies to outfit the buildings with toilets, showers, beds, dining and recreation areas and then run them as detention centers.” A third site in El Paso, Texas meant to house up to 8500 people has also been secured, though the purchase price has not been disclosed. Another pattern you’ll find here: lots and lots of obfuscation by the Trump regime. The more people they detain, the more opaque the entire immigrant detention apparatus becomes, whether you’re trying to locate your loved one in the database or you’re a congressmember attempting to exercise your legal right to tour the facilities in your jurisdiction. The Trump regime has made every attempt to keep these processes under wraps. Which means the reports that have already come out of the abhorrent conditions in these facilities might only scratch the surface of the horrors happening behind closed doors.
One facility with some of the worst offenses is called Camp East Montana, located at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas and the US-Mexico border with El Paso on one side and Ciudad Juarez on the other. This is an example of the soft-sided tent facilities that it appears DHS is planning on expanding. A report from the Washington Post back in September cited 60 violations of DHS’s own detention standards in the first 50 days of the center being open. Detainees were being shuttled into the detention center in the middle of the desert before construction had even completed. Violations included a lack of access to phones and lawyers, huge tents housing hundreds of migrants that were so loud and so bright at all hours of the day and night no one could sleep, seeping sewage, spoiled food, denial of access to basic medical care, and more. And Camp East Montana is not an outlier. These complaints–overcrowding, no access to lawyers, unsanitary conditions, spoiled or insufficient food, and denial of medical care–are common and recurring across DHS facilities. Here in Minnesota, the surge in ICE activity has meant a surge in need for holding cells for immigrants and citizens alike. Numerous detainees report being held in horrific conditions at the Whipple Federal Building where ICE has setup headquarters, including being shoved with 50 others in rooms meant to hold half as many people. One woman reported being held in a locked bathroom with three men and then, when the men were removed, with another woman and her infant child who was sick with the flu and forced to sleep on a bathroom floor for the night. In 2025, at least 30 people died while in ICE custody, the deadliest year on record even including during the COVID pandemic. Already this year six more people have died in ICE custody. That number is guaranteed to rise and likely surpass last year’s record. At least three of last year’s deaths occurred at Camp East Montana, that soft-sided tent camp that was hastily erected in the desert outside El Paso, most of the reported deaths occurred because of reported lack of access to medical care.
And now, CNN and Immigrant Insider report that there will be a new infusion of cash into these soft-sided tent camps thanks to a back door contracting system set up between DHS and the Navy. According to reporting by Pablo Manriquez for Immigrant Insider quote “A massive Navy contract vehicle, once valued at $10 billion, has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda.
The mechanism for this expansion is the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC), originally designed for military logistics abroad. In a move to bypass traditional competition delays, the Navy’s Supply Systems Command has repurposed the vehicle for “TITUS”—Territorial Integrity of the United States.
This $45 billion increase, published just weeks ago, converts the U.S. into a “geographic region” for expeditionary military-style detention. It signals a massive, long-term escalation in the government’s capacity to pay for detention and deportation logistics. In the world of federal contracting, it is the difference between a temporary surge and a permanent infrastructure.”
What this means is that companies with existing Navy contracts can bypass the lengthy bidding process and the public gets shut out of notice and comment periods, allowing for expedited federal contracts to pass on a moments notice–meaning there can essentially be a ghost network of contractors at the ready to erect camp cities as quickly as possible. And these contractors are often experienced with military-style foreign missions and emergency situations. And the line items detailed by Manriquez indicate these would be permanent structures with medical facilities, mess halls, security apparatus, and, chillingly, “Medical Waste Management,” with specific protocols for biohazard incinerators. With a bloated $55 BILLION dollar budget for these facilities, the American Immigration Council estimates that in short order the Trump administration could have upwards of 135,000 immigration detention center beds, fully funded from now until 2029. Reminder there were 40,000 when he took office.
And as I’ve said, reports coming out of these facilities are damning, from maggots in food to seeping sewage to children contracting measles, we’ve gone so far beyond family separation and children in cages. And that’s just what we know about. There’s a reason Kristi Noem and the other goons are doing everything they can to keep the public out of these facilities. However, last week a federal judge in DC ordered that Noem cannot bar lawmakers from entering detention facilities in their jurisdiction. Noem had argued that despite what the law says actually they CAN bar lawmakers from entering facilities because the law requiring lawmakers to be able to make surprise visits was a separate spending bill and now they’re operating with Big Beautiful Bill funds which didn’t have any such requirement attached to it. As the federal judge ruled, the law requiring lawmakers to have access to facilities still stands because it’s not actually possible to parse which dollars DHS uses are Big Beautiful Bill dollars and which ones are from other dollars because that would be fucking stupid and obviously the intent of Congress was to require DHS to allow lawmakers to tour facilities whenever they want. That doesn’t necessarily mean that now all the sudden ICE is going to throw its doors wide open to the public, but it’s important to get these things on the record to show every time the regime does break the law. It’s unclear how this latest ruling will impact lawmakers' actual ability to enter ICE facilities. But every time a Congressmember is denied access to tour immigrant detention centers that is against the law. I’m hopeful that means there will be a push now from our congressmembers to make routine visits to DHS facilities to document what’s happening in there. Because again what we already know about is harrowing, especially considering these centers, again, are NOT MEANT TO BE PUNISHMENT. And even if they were I don’t think it would be a stretch to argue this is cruel and unusual punishment which is against the constitution.
There have been a lot of comparisons drawn between these detention centers and the concentration camps during the holocaust as well as the Japanese internment camps in the US also during World War II. I don’t think those comparisons are particularly apt and I think they do more to instill fear in people than anything particularly constructive. But what I was wondering in researching all of this is how much people knew, during World War II, of the atrocities being committed by Hitler and even here by the US government. The internment camps in the US were not the same as the death camps in Europe, but they were certainly racist and violated the human rights of everyone who was held there. And much of the worst of the atrocities committed by the Nazis didn’t come out until after the death camps were liberated. So how much did people know? How blindsided were people when images of starving prisoners being liberated from Dachau began to surface? Will we have a similar situation, where it will come to light only later the extent of the horrors being committed by the US government against detained immigrants?
Here’s what I learned: people knew. Everyone knew. They knew at least as early as 1941 that Hitler was executing Jews en masse. In August, 1941, Winston Churchill made an address to the public announcing that Hitler was exterminating entire districts in Eastern Europe and executing thousands of civilians in cold blood. By spring 1942, US journalists who had been kicked out of occupied Europe reported that Hitler had already exterminated half a million jews. And that summer papers across the world reported that a million jews had been killed. By December 1942, Edward Murrow of CBS Radio reported quote “What is happening is this. Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered. The phrase ‘concentration camps’ is obsolete, as out of date as economic sanctions or non-recognition. It is now possible only to speak of extermination camps.”
And as for Japanese internment in the United States, not only was it public knowledge, it was an incredibly POPULAR policy. A poll taken in March 1942 asked respondents quote “Do you think we are doing the right thing in moving Japanese aliens (those who are not citizens) away from the Pacific coast?” 93% said yes. Only ONE PERCENT felt that interning Japanese immigrants was wrong. The poll went on to ask quote “How about the Japanese who were born in this country and are United States citizens, do you think they should be moved?” 59% said yes and only 25% believed that US citizens who were of Japanese descent should NOT be interned. And it was argued well its for national security I mean Pearl Harbor. But please remember this was at the same exact time when the world knew Germans were massacring hundreds of thousands of people and there were far more German Americans on US soil, some of whom openly expressed support of Nazism, none of whom were interned in camps for Germans and German-Americans.
Never underestimate the power of racism. History doesn’t repeat itself but it sure does rhyme. Despite the horrific conditions in immigrant detention facilities being documented across the United States, despite the deteriorating public opinion when it comes to the most egregious ICE hostilities, the ones that result in white people dying in the streets, there is still a shockingly large population in the United States, many of whom I’m sure you’ll find right here in this very comments section, who are applauding this. Who read the reports and who say good. Serves them right for coming here illegally.
Even as reports and images and video of the emaciated prisoners in the concentration camps became public at the end of World War II, there were still many Nazis and Nazi sympathizers who thought Hitler was right. Who looked that inhumane, barbaric treatment in the face and said that was right. Today history is rhyming. We have children getting measles in a country that eradicated the disease a quarter century ago while the regime sits by and says ah well at least they’re not autistic. We have humans being detained, beaten, held in overcrowded facilities, dying of medical emergencies, living in the seeping oozing sewage of their fellow inmates, while the regime says well they’re criminals the worst of the worst they’re not humans its fine look away. But I encourage you not to look away. Bloomberg published a list of places where DHS is attempting to procure warehouses to store humans in. Some of these have been shut down like the one attempted in Shakopee Minnesota, some are moving forward, I encourage you to do some Googling for your own area to see if there are reports of DHS attempting to find facilities near you. Putting up a stink works. Make it as hard as possible for DHS to find anywhere to put people. Encourage your Congress members to visit the ICE facilities in your area. Do you even know whether there are DHS detention centers in your area? Don’t look away. It is easy to be distracted by the horrific manner by which DHS agents are capturing people, murdering people in the streets, but that’s truly just the beginning. Protesters tend to be roughed up a bit, held for a while, and then released. Immigrants, however, are being wholly disappeared. Kidnapped and sent far away from home, no matter what their medical needs no matter whether they have a lawyer no matter whether they’re here legally. We cannot be indifferent to that. They have to know we are watching them. It won’t stop the atrocities but it’s all we can do.
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And if you liked this episode, you’ll like my episode from last week about regime change in Cuba.
