Donald Trump‘s administration is buying warehouses to transform them into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the United States, reports the Guardian. The news has fired up the critics, as concerns arise about the living conditions when these massive, industrial spaces are transformed into facilities to hold people.
Warehouses are generally made of hard floors and high ceilings, and they are drafty and difficult to heat. These conditions make them great for holding goods that will soon be shipped out, but not for people. According to the outlet, the administration has recently purchased a big warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, for $70 million. The building is about the size of seven football fields.
ICE also bought another warehouse in Upper Bern Township, Pennsylvania, for $87.4 million. Another massive space of nearly 54 acres in Williamsport, Maryland, just outside Hagerstown, was valued at $102 million. According to the Guardian, a 640,000 square feet facility at the southern border in San Antonio, Texas, was valued at $37 million.
GEORGIA — Trump’s DHS just bought an ICE detention warehouse for $128 MILLION… that sold for $29 MILLION two years ago… from a Russia-based real estate company.🤔
Nothing to see here, folks!
We are being looted so hard by these crooks
(H/T @TheMaineWonk) pic.twitter.com/LDx9IyZNtT
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 16, 2026
Some of these buildings could reportedly hold up to 9,000 people at a time as the Trump administration plans to convert them into detention camps for people in the country illegally. This news comes after last year, ICE director Todd Lyons said that he wanted the effort to operate “like Amazon Prime, for human beings.”
The sudden purchase of multiple warehouses all over the nation suggests that the administration is looking to accelerate its immigration operations. According to the Guardian, ICE currently holds about 70,000 people per night across 224 detention centers. After Congress appropriated the $45 billion funding for ICE in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” the agency began scouting and eventually purchasing these massive warehouses.
The administration is already under fire for the poor living conditions at the detention centers. The tent camp nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades earned a bad name for its conditions. The tent facility in Fort Bliss, Texas, has also seen similar issues. Meanwhile, there have been reports of unsanitary conditions in the Krome detention center in Miami and in Dilley, Texas.
ICE just bought a 418,000-square-foot Arizona warehouse, the size of seven football fields, to further facilitate mass deportations.
Deportations are only ramping up. pic.twitter.com/1fZ7cRbuFo
— X22 Report (@X22Report) January 30, 2026
The Texas facility is one of those detention centers that hold children. Joaquin Castro, the U.S. representative, lamented after visiting the center, “These kids are very traumatized, many of them despondent and depressed.”
However, the condition in many of these detention centers remains under wraps as the Department of Homeland Security has taken measures to limit oversight. While some journalists have been granted only partial access, others have been granted none. ICE has even turned down members of Congress, sparking controversy about what they are trying to hide.
