ACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals ICE Actively Considering Opening Six New Immigration Detention Centers
NEW YORK – New documents obtained by the ACLU, ACLU of Virginia, and ACLU of North Carolina reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is considering six new locations for potential ICE detention centers. At least two of the six facilities in question are former correctional facilities with an established history of violence, sexual abuse, and corruption. The findings come less than a month after the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is planning to convert industrial warehouses into ICE detention facilities designed to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time.
“It’s egregious that ICE is actively considering reopening facilities notorious for abuse and corruption – and they’re using our taxpayer dollars to fuel this expansion,” said Eunice Cho, senior counsel at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “Six people have already died in ICE custody in the first three weeks of the year. ICE has given us no reason to believe that these detention centers would be any safer than the abusive facilities it already operates."
The 98 pages of records were disclosed in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and affiliates in October 2025, after ICE failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by the organizations. The litigation follows a series of lawsuits filed by the ACLU and its affiliates seeking details about ICE’s plans to expand detention capacity nationwide. Already, the ACLU’s FOIA litigation has revealed critical details about ICE’s plans, including details on which current and new facilities are being considered across the Midwest, South, and West Coast.
“ICE has made clear that it relies on secrecy. The heavily redacted documents we obtained through litigation expose disturbing expansion plans,” said Michele Delgado, staff attorney at the ACLU of North Carolina. “When North Carolinians must fight for basic information about federal enforcement in their own state, the public cannot trust that these decisions are in their best interest.”
The documents disclosed by ICE also provide information regarding the history of facility use, available transport, proximity to local hospitals, immigration courts, and legal services. The facilities under consideration include:
- The Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, VA. The proposal states that the detention center is in discussions with a private operator to run the facility. The facility recently closed in 2024, and people held at the facility have endured sexual assault. Former officers at the correctional center have also plead guilty to smuggling drugs into the facility.
- The Rivers Correctional Facility in Winton, NC, which is owned and operated by the GEO Group, Inc. The GEO Group previously lost federal contracts to detain people at this facility due to findings of violence and sexual assault at the facility. Former officers at the facility were also recently sentenced for contraband and bribery.
- An unidentified facility – likely the former American Hebrew Academy, run by the Baptiste Group – located in or near Greensboro, NC. The facility had previously been slated to serve as a migrant children’s detention facility but was shut down in 2024.
- An unidentified facility run by HomelandsUSA, which has supported the construction of the border wall in the past.
- An unidentified facility run by the Baptiste Group, located in or near Harrisburg, PA.
- Another unidentified facility in an undesignated location, which ICE seeks to use as a “base camp.”
Already, Congress has allocated more than $45 billion for ICE detention alone. If opened, the facilities would increase ICE’s capacity to detain people who are immigrants, adding to the more than 70,000 immigrants currently in ICE detention. In just the first three weeks of 2026, six people have died in ICE custody, underscoring advocates’ concerns that any more funding for ICE detention will undoubtedly lead to preventable deaths and abuses.
“The Trump administration cannot be allowed to continue its weaponization of immigration detention in secret,” said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney at the ACLU of Virginia. “As we have seen, abuse and civil rights violations are rampant in these facilities, and the public has a right to know where and how the government intends to expand its use of these deadly facilities."
The FOIA records are available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/foia-response-washington-field-office-detention-expansion
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Immigrants' Rights
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