ICE

ICE Largely Abandons Plan To Turn Warehouses Into Migrant Detention Facilities

The Department of Homeland Security plans to sell or offload seven warehouses it originally purchased to house migrants.

Joe Lancaster | 6.19.2026 12:31 PM

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(roxburynj/DHS/Aaron Schwartz - Pool via CNP/SIPA/Newscom)

As part of President Donald Trump's plan to deport every single undocumented immigrant—and perhaps tens of millions of citizens and legal residents—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) planned to spend billions of dollars buying up industrial warehouses across the country.

The stated purpose was to convert them into detention centers to house migrants targeted for deportation, with the ultimate goal of expanding total detention capacity to 100,000.

Reportedly, and in a welcome development, the DHS is largely scrapping the plan, and most of the warehouses it has already purchased will be sold or used for another purpose.

"In a major turnabout, [ICE] is planning to offload seven warehouses purchased for more than $700 million by either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright," Hamed Aleaziz reported this week at The New York Times. In particular, that includes two in Georgia, two in Pennsylvania, and one each in Michigan, New Jersey, and Utah.

The shift seems to........

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