Currently, ICE has funds to house an average of 41,500 detainees. The official indicated that the agency was working with US legislators to obtain more funds for detention centers.
Immigrant detention centers in the United States are at the limit of their capacity with 47,600 detainees, said an official of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) in a call with journalists on Wednesday. He added that the Trump administration was looking for more places.
The official, who requested anonymity as a condition for the call, indicated that ICE was expanding his number of beds with the support of the Department of Defense, the Sheriff Service and the Prison Office.
Currently, ICE has funds to house an average of 41,500 detainees. The official indicated that the agency was working with US legislators to obtain more funds for detention centers.
Republican president Donald Trump has pledged to deport a record number of migrants who are without authorization in the United States, arguing that it is necessary after the high levels of irregular immigration registered during the government of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
Trump's border tsar, Tom Homan, declared in December 2024 that the administration would need at least 100,000 beds for mass deportations.
In this effort, the Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, launched this week The CBP Home applicationwith a function to report the self -export of foreigners who are irregularly in the country.
The Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) has intensified the arrests since Trump assumed the position on January 20, including those of people who violate migratory laws without other charges or criminal convictions.
From January 20 to March 10, ICE made around 32,800 arrests, of which 27 % were alleged migratory offenders without other positions or criminal convictions, according to the ICE official.
In a recent joint operation between immigration agents and federal and local authorities between February 23 and March 2 in the Houston area, 71 orders of criminal arrest and 554 administrative arrests were executed that included smuggers of people, gang members, traffickers of people, sexual aggressors of minors, drug traffickers of weapons and drug traffickers, among others.
“These collective efforts have significantly improved the security of our local communities and have strengthened our national and border security. As a result, we have sent a forceful message to the transnational criminal organizations around the world: the police community on the coast of the Gulf of Texas is more united than ever and will not rest until they eradicate these criminal elements of the country,” said Chad Plantz, a special agent in charge of national security investigations in Houston.
The Biden administration, throughout fiscal year 2024, culminated a total of 113,400 arrests, according to ICE figures.
While ICE arrests have increased, Trump's initial deportations have been lower than Biden's averages last year, he reported Reuters In February. However, deportation figures of the Biden era were driven by the high number of captured migrants irregularly crossing the border between the United States and Mexico, who were quickly deported or returned to Mexico.
(With Reuters information)