Democrats want to ban ICE from turning warehouses into detention centers

A bill introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) would prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from converting warehouses and similar buildings into immigrant detention centers, an attempt to slow President Donald Trump’s mass deportations campaign. The Ban Warehouse Detention Act would also forbid Immigration and Customs Enforcement from developing other “non-traditional” detention facilities. “ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are murdering people in the streets, tearing families apart, abducting our neighbors, and locking them in cages. Now they are attempting to buy and convert warehouses across our country into massive prison camps to expand their operations, despite strong local opposition in communities like mine,” Tlaib said. “This will only increase the serious human rights abuses and trauma on immigrant families including medical neglect, inhumane conditions, and rising deaths.” ICE detailed its plan to expand into “non-traditional” facilities like warehouses in a February 2026 memo. The agency estimated that it would spend $38.3 billion on this new detention plan, which would be funded through allocations from Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed in 2025, included $45 billion for the construction of new ICE facilities. As of April 1st, DHS has spent over $1 billion on warehouses. Under the direction of former secretary Kristi Noem, the department purchased 11 warehouses across eight states as part of an effort to expand its detention infrastructure. After Noem’s ouster, the department halted its plan to buy additional warehouses. Two DHS officials told NBC News the pause — which they emphasized is only temporary — was intended to give Noem’s successor Markwayne Mullin time to review the department’s policies. In the meantime, Tlaib’s bill aims to stop the policy for good. ICE’s detention footprint has grown significantly since Trump’s return to office. To supercharge Trump’s mass deportation plan, DHS opened 104 facilities between January and November 2025, according to a report by the American Immigration Council. ICE’s detention capacity increased by over 75% in the first year of Trump’s second term, reaching a record 73,000 people in mid-January. But the administration wants to expand further — and is turning to warehouses to meet its need for detention beds. “The Trump administration is ruthlessly pursuing a multi-layered detention expansion plan,” Marisol Hernandez, the senior advocacy manager at Detention Watch Network, told The Verge. The warehouses will allow the administration to scale up at an “unprecedented rate,” Hernandez said. “Warehouses aren’t meant to detain individuals. There’s concern that people are being treated as commodities. People aren’t supposed to be treated that way. They’re not supposed to be shipped or discarded or profited off.” DHS spent $145.4 million on a warehouse outside Salt Lake City, Utah, paying 50% more than the property’s assessed value, according to The Atlantic. The warehouse facilities haven’t opened yet, and the plans have faced local pushback — even in deep-red communities that supported Trump’s reelection bid in 2024. Lawsuits have stalled construction in New Jersey, Maryland, and Michigan. The Atlanta city council unanimously passed a resolution opposing ICE’s plans to build detention warehouses in Georgia, as did the Georgia cities of Oakwood and South Fulton. At a February city council meeting, more than 100 residents of Surprise, Arizona, a small community outside Phoenix, spoke out against ICE’s attempt to open a warehouse facility there. The construction of new detention centers, “comes at the expense of Americans’ access to healthcare, food security, and housing and education,” Hernandez said. If stories of ICE raids have centered on cities or far-off urban areas, the visibility of Trump’s deportation policies are about to be in everyone’s backyard.