As Money Rushed In, ICE’s Rapid Expansion Stalled Out
By Nick Miroff
October 6, 2025, 10:37 AM ET
Few provisions in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act were as thrilling to immigration hard-liners as the $45 billion it provided to supersize the ICE detention system. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had long complained that a lack of jail space constrained their ability to deport more people. The bill gave ICE enough money to nearly triple its detention capacity to more than 100,000 beds—a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” the White House called it.
But in the three months since the bill was signed, the agency has added little to that capacity. The lack of beds may be limiting ICE’s ability to expand its enforcement; the number of arrests it’s made peaked in June and has declined in the months since. The agency’s focus on partnerships with state governments has done little to add capacity, despite driving up costs. And overcrowding has worsened in short-term holding cells at ICE processing centers, where detainees, attorneys, and immigrant advocates report abysmal conditions.
Lawmakers who visited the Baltimore center in August said detainees were spending as long as eight days in bare-bones cells designed for 12-hour stays. In Georgia, Virginia, and California, attorneys say immigrants have been forced to sleep on concrete floors without showers or bedding for days. Last month, a district court judge in New York City ordered immediate improvements to the processing center at a federal building in Lower Manhattan, where secretly recorded videos showed packed holding cells and men sleeping beside toilets. The lack of detention space has slowed Trump’s immigration crackdown at a moment when it was primed to accelerate.
From January to June, the average number of detainees per day in ICE custody rose 43 percent, to more than 57,000. But since July, when the funding was approved, the detainee population has increased only about 5 percent, to roughly 60,000, the latest statistics show. The stream of social-media clips showing masked federal agents kicking down doors, raiding Home Depot parking lots, and pulling people from their car have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign. ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer.
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