ICE Detention Facilities Statistics 2026 | Key Facts

ICE Detention Facilities in 2026

The United States immigration detention system managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reached an extraordinary scale in 2026. Under ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division, the agency oversees one of the most transient and diverse civil detention systems anywhere in the world — holding tens of thousands of individuals on any given day across a sprawling network of facilities that range from dedicated ICE processing centers to county jails and private correctional facilities. This year has brought record-setting numbers, expanded infrastructure plans, significant federal funding, and renewed scrutiny over standards of care, transparency, and the fundamental question of who is actually being detained and why.

The numbers tell a story that goes well beyond simple headcounts. In FY 2026, the ICE detention population crossed 70,000 for the first time in recorded history, the agency is planning eight mega-detention centers capable of housing up to 10,000 people each, and over 180,000 individuals are being monitored through electronic supervision programs outside of physical detention. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of people inside these facilities — more than 70% — carry no criminal conviction of any kind. Understanding these statistics in full is essential for anyone trying to make sense of US immigration enforcement in 2026.

Interesting Facts: ICE Detention Facilities in 2026

KEY FACTS AT A GLANCE — ICE DETENTION 2026
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

  Record peak detention pop.  ██████████████████████████  70,766
  Detention pop. (Apr 4)      ████████████████████        60,311
  Alternatives to Detention   ████████████████████████████████████  180,701
  New bookings (March 2026)   ██████████                  32,531
  ATD ankle monitors          ████████                    42,115
  Deaths in custody (2025)    ██                          30

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: TRAC Reports (tracreports.org), ICE/DHS official statistics, WOLA, American Immigration Council, ICE biweekly detention reports, DHS OHSS

The facts above paint a picture that no single headline can fully capture. The ICE detention system in 2026 is operating at an unprecedented scale — both in terms of raw numbers and in terms of its reach into communities. The crossing of the 70,000 detainee threshold in late January 2026 marked a historic inflection point, one that coincided with a detention population composed overwhelmingly of individuals with no criminal history. The fact that 92% of all FY 2026 detention growth is attributed to people with no criminal charges or convictions raises direct questions about the stated public safety rationale behind detention expansion.

Beyond the numbers in physical facilities, the 180,701 people on electronic monitoring as of early April 2026 represent an often-overlooked dimension of ICE’s reach. The near-doubling of GPS ankle monitor usage — from roughly 24,000 in mid-2025 to 42,115 by February 2026 — reflects a deliberate policy shift documented in an internal ICE memo directing officers to expand ankle monitor use. Meanwhile, the 30 in-custody deaths in 2025 and at least 6 more in the first two weeks of 2026 signal a humanitarian crisis unfolding inside an expanding and increasingly opaque system, compounded by reports that ICE stopped paying third-party medical providers from October 2025 onward.

ICE Detention Population Statistics in the US 2026

DAILY DETAINED POPULATION — KEY DATES IN FY 2026
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  Sep 21, 2025  ████████████████████             57,694
  Dec 13, 2025  ██████████████████████████       68,442
  Jan  7, 2026  ██████████████████████████       68,990
  Jan 24, 2026  ███████████████████████████      70,766  ← Record High
  Feb  7, 2026  ██████████████████████████       68,289
  Apr  4, 2026  ████████████████████             60,311
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: ICE biweekly detention statistics, TRAC Immigration Quick Facts (tracreports.org), Austin Kocher/ICE data analysis, American Immigration Council

The ICE detention population in 2026 has experienced the most dramatic growth in the agency’s history. Beginning the fiscal year with around 57,694 people in custody on September 21, 2025, the count surged to a record-breaking 70,766 by January 24, 2026 — shattering all previous records and crossing the 70,000 threshold for the very first time. This represents an increase of over 13,000 people in just four months. When compared to the approximately 39,000 people detained when President Trump returned to office in January 2025, the growth amounts to a near-doubling in roughly one year. The American Immigration Council confirmed the daily detained population increased by over 75% in a single year — a rate of growth that has no precedent in the modern history of US immigration detention.

By early April 2026, the figure had moderated somewhat to 60,311 — a decline attributed in part to a surge in federal court rulings challenging detention practices, including rulings from Trump-appointed judges, and a wave of habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of detained individuals. Nevertheless, the scale of detention remains at historically extreme levels. The gap between the ICE-reported figure of 212 active facilities in January 2026 and the Vera Institute’s independently documented count of 456 active facilities in February 2026 also highlights a persistent transparency problem: ICE acknowledges only a fraction of the actual footprint of its detention network in its public reporting.

ICE Detention Facilities by State in the US 2026

TOP STATES BY ICE DETENTION — FY 2026 (as of April 2026)
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  Texas        ████████████████████████████████  17,908
  Louisiana    ████████████████                   8,115
  California   ████████████                       5,807
  Florida      ████████████                       5,281
  Georgia      █████████                          4,383
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: TRAC Immigration Quick Facts (tracreports.org), data current as of April 2, 2026

Texas dominates the national ICE detention landscape in FY 2026, housing 17,908 detainees — more than double the number held in Louisiana, the second-ranked state with 8,115 detainees. Texas’s position reflects both its geography as a major border state and the concentration of large processing facilities there, including the ERO El Paso Camp East Montana, which averaged 2,505 detainees per day and ranked as the single largest ICE detention facility nationwide in FY 2026. The Texas-Louisiana corridor alone accounts for roughly 43% of all ICE detainees nationally, pointing to a heavily southern-and-border-concentrated detention geography.

California (5,807), Florida (5,281), and Georgia (4,383) round out the top five, and together the top five states account for the vast majority of all detained individuals. The geographic concentration of ICE detention facilities matters in practical ways: it determines how far detained individuals are placed from their families, lawyers, and support networks, and it shapes access to legal representation. Transfers across state lines — a common ICE practice — further compound these challenges, as people originally arrested in the interior of the country may find themselves held in remote facilities in Louisiana or Texas, thousands of miles from their communities.

Largest ICE Detention Facilities in the US 2026

TOP FACILITIES BY AVERAGE DAILY POPULATION — FY 2026
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  ERO El Paso Camp East Montana (TX)  ████████████████  2,505
  Adams County Det. Center (MS/Natchez)  █████████████  2,124
  Stewart Det. Center (Lumpkin, GA)   ████████████       2,026
  South Texas Det. Complex (Pearsall) ███████████        1,741
  Adelanto ICE Processing Ctr. (CA)   ███████████        1,733
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: TRAC Immigration Quick Facts (tracreports.org), data current as of April 2026

The ERO El Paso Camp East Montana stands out as the largest ICE detention facility in the US during FY 2026, averaging 2,505 detainees per day — a figure that is itself a product of the Trump administration’s rapid repurposing of military installations for immigration detention. Fort Bliss, the El Paso military base that hosts this facility, also became a flashpoint for controversy in early 2026 when three detainees died there within a span of 44 days, with an autopsy confirming one death was a homicide. The Natchez facility in Mississippi (2,124) and Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia (2,026) round out the top three, both of which have long histories of documented complaints about conditions, medical care, and isolation from legal services.

The concentration of detainees in a handful of massive facilities — each holding over 1,700 people — is a deliberate architectural choice within the ICE detention system. Large facilities offer economies of scale from ICE’s contracting perspective but create compounding risks when medical staff are inadequate, legal access is limited, and oversight bodies are understaffed or underfunded. The Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California (1,733 average daily) has been the subject of multiple DHS Office of Inspector General investigations over the years, and it remains one of the highest-population facilities in the western US. Taken together, these five facilities alone account for over 16,000 bed-days of detention capacity daily.

ICE Detention Expansion Plans in the US 2026

PLANNED DETENTION INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION — 2026
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  Mega-centers (10,000 beds each)      ████████  8 planned
  Regional processing sites (1-1.5K)  ████████████████  16
  Turnkey existing centers acquired   █████  10
  New ICE law enforcement hires        ████████████  12,000
  Target bed capacity                  ██████████████████████████ 92,600
  Allocated federal funding            ██████████████████████  $45B
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: ICE internal memo (February 13, 2026), American Immigration Council, National Immigration Forum, Fox News/AP reporting on warehouse acquisitions

The scale of the ICE detention expansion plan in 2026 is without precedent in US immigration history. The February 13, 2026 internal ICE memo describes the initiative explicitly as designed to support “mass deportations,” laying out a target of 92,600 detention beds — a capacity that would approach the size of the entire federal prison system. The centerpiece of this plan is 8 mega-detention centers, each holding up to 10,000 people, all slated for completion by November 30, 2026. Supplementing these are 16 regional processing sites and 10 turnkey acquisitions, with at least 7 large warehouses already purchased across five states as of early 2026. The longer-term funding authorization — $45 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — gives ICE enough resources to operate up to 135,000 beds through the end of FY 2029.

The financial mathematics are staggering. At the current average daily cost of $152 per detainee, operating 100,000 detention beds at full capacity would cost over $14 billion per year — a figure larger than the annual budget of many federal cabinet departments. Critics, including the American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Forum, have argued that this expansion is particularly difficult to justify given that over 70% of current detainees have no criminal conviction. At the same time, ICE has added 12,000 new law enforcement officers to sustain the enforcement pipeline that feeds detention facilities — creating a self-reinforcing system in which more arrests require more facilities, which in turn require more funding and more officers.

ICE Detention Criminality Data in the US 2026

DETAINED POPULATION BY CRIMINAL HISTORY — April 4, 2026
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  No criminal conviction  ████████████████████████████████  70.8% (42,722)
  Pending charges only    ████████                          ~14%
  Criminal conviction     ██████                            ~15.2%
  (of which: violent)     ██                                small subset
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: TRAC Immigration Quick Facts (tracreports.org, April 4, 2026), Deportation Data Project analysis, ICE official data via Austin Kocher

The criminality breakdown of the ICE detained population in 2026 is one of the most debated statistics in US immigration policy. As of April 4, 2026, 70.8% of all ICE detainees — equivalent to 42,722 people — held no criminal conviction of any kind, according to data sourced directly from ICE’s own administrative records and analyzed by TRAC. Looking specifically at the growth in detention during FY 2026, the picture is even more striking: 92% of the increase between September 2025 and January 2026 came entirely from individuals with no criminal charges or convictions. Just 8% of the growth can be attributed to people with criminal convictions, and even within that subset, researchers at the Cato Institute found that the vast majority of convictions involved minor or non-violent offenses rather than serious public safety threats.

The policy consequences of these numbers are deeply significant. Under the Biden administration, individuals with no criminal conviction who did not have a prior removal order were released within 60 days of arrest at a rate of 35%. Under the current administration’s policies, that release rate has plummeted to just 7%. Simultaneously, the rate of deportation within 60 days for this same group has doubled — from 27% to 57%. In other words, people with no criminal history who are arrested by ICE in 2026 face a dramatically higher chance of rapid deportation and a dramatically lower chance of release while their cases proceed. This shift has contributed directly to a 21-fold increase in voluntary departures as individuals facing this new reality increasingly choose to leave rather than fight their cases from inside detention.

ICE Detention Deaths and Healthcare in the US 2026

ICE IN-CUSTODY DEATHS BY YEAR (REPORTED)
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  2024          ████                           11 deaths
  2025          ███████████████████████████    30 deaths  ← 20-yr high
  2026 (Jan 1-14 only)  ████                   6 deaths
  Total (Jan 2025 – Apr 2026)  ███████████████ 49 deaths
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: WOLA Border Update (January 2026), NPR (April 18, 2026), Congressional letters to DHS (vasquez.house.gov, stevens.house.gov), AILA Deaths at Adult Detention Centers database

The mortality data coming out of ICE detention facilities in 2025 and 2026 is among the most alarming in two decades. The 30 deaths recorded in 2025 represented the highest annual total in over 20 years — more than doubling the 11 deaths reported in 2024 — and the pace in early 2026 shows no sign of improvement, with 6 more deaths in just the first 14 days of 2026. In total, 49 people died in ICE custody between January 2025 and April 2026. To put this in historical context, more deaths occurred in the first nine months of the current administration than in the entire four years of Trump’s first term, during which 36 people died.

Healthcare access inside ICE detention facilities has deteriorated severely. ICE reportedly stopped paying third-party medical providers beginning in October 2025, leading some providers to deny services to detained individuals. Congressional oversight letters from multiple members of Congress documented suicide risks, delayed treatment, failure to manage essential medications, and inadequate mental health care as recurring systemic failures. Three of the six deaths in early January 2026 were reportedly suicides. The death of Geraldo Lunas Campos on January 3, 2026, is a stark example of the transparency failures compounding the crisis: DHS initially described his death in ways later contradicted by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office, which ruled the death a homicide. Meanwhile, ICE issued the required 48-hour interim death notice in only 15 of 49 documented cases — a compliance rate well below the legal standard.

ICE Alternatives to Detention Programs in the US 2026

ATD PROGRAM ENROLLMENT BY FIELD OFFICE — April 4, 2026
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  San Francisco   ████████████████████  20,500
  Los Angeles     ████████████████████  18,746
  Miami           ████████████████████  18,528
  Chicago         ████████████████████  18,136
  New York        ████████████████      10,677
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  TOTAL ATD ENROLLMENT: 180,701
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: TRAC Immigration Quick Facts (tracreports.org, April 4, 2026), ICE FY 2026 biweekly reports, Medill on the Hill analysis (March 2026)

ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) programs now monitor 180,701 people — a figure that dwarfs the physical detention population of roughly 60,000 and reflects a parallel enforcement infrastructure that operates largely outside public awareness. The ATD program, formally implemented in 2004, uses GPS ankle monitors, smartphone apps (SmartLINK), and phone check-ins to track individuals while their immigration cases proceed. But in 2026, the program has shifted decisively toward its most restrictive form: a June 2025 internal ICE memo directed officers to place GPS ankle monitors on all ATD enrollees, causing the ankle monitor count to nearly double — from around 24,000 to 42,115 — in subsequent months.

The geographic distribution of ATD enrollment reveals a different map than physical detention. While Texas dominates physical detention numbers, the San Francisco field office leads ATD enrollment with 20,500 monitored individuals, followed closely by Los Angeles (18,746), Miami (18,528), and Chicago (18,136). Legal advocates and researchers have raised serious concerns that ATD is not functioning as a genuine alternative to detention but rather as an extended form of surveillance. Cases have been documented where ICE used ankle monitor check-in requirements as a pretext to locate and arrest individuals at their homes. Combined with the onerous conditions that include curfews, home inspections, and travel restrictions, ATD in 2026 represents a form of community-based enforcement that touches a population 2.6 times larger than those held behind bars.

ICE Removal and Deportation Statistics in the US 2026

REMOVALS COMPARISON — SAME PERIOD ACROSS FISCAL YEARS
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  FY 2024 (Oct–Apr)  ████████████                 133,803
  FY 2025 (Oct–Apr)  ████████████                 134,500
  FY 2026 (Oct–Apr)  ██████████████████████       234,236  ← +74%
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  Projected FY 2026 full-year total: ~460,000
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Source: Deportation Data Project (deportationdata.org, April 7, 2026), ICE ERO statistics (ice.gov), TRAC Reports

ICE removal and deportation statistics in FY 2026 represent the single sharpest acceleration in enforcement in the agency’s modern history. Between October 1, 2025 and April 4, 2026, ICE carried out 234,236 removals — a figure that is 74% higher than the same period in either of the two prior fiscal years. At the most recent recorded average of 1,286 removals per day, FY 2026 is on pace to reach an estimated 460,000 total removals — which would be 45% above FY 2025’s record of 319,980 and 85% above FY 2024’s total of 248,739. The peak rate of 1,456 removals per day was recorded in late January 2026, coinciding with the period of maximum detention population.

The mechanics behind these removal numbers have changed fundamentally. The chance of deportation within 60 days of detention increased from 55% to 69% — a 25% jump — as the administration reduced opportunities for bond hearings and legal recourse. For individuals with no criminal record, this shift is especially pronounced: what was once a 27% deportation rate within 60 days has become a 57% rate, while the release rate during case proceedings has dropped from 35% to 7%. The Deportation Data Project documented a fivefold increase in the number of deportations following interior ICE arrests and detention in January 2026 compared to the monthly average in the second half of 2024. Interior ICE arrests themselves have increased 4.4 times — making the pipeline from arrest to detention to deportation faster, wider, and less penetrable by legal intervention than at any prior point in ICE’s history.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

Email ID:

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Email

Email *

SUBSCRIBE