Related stories
As detention efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency continue, new reports are detailing that the Donald Trump administration is working to develop large-scale holding centers to speed up deportations. This is according to internal ICE documents reviewed by the Washington Post.
One location being considered is a facility with the potential to hold 10,000 people in Stafford County, Virginia.
This plan would change the current system — where people are moved around to whichever facility has open beds — into a staged pipeline built around “processing sites” and massive “warehouses” intended to speed removals.
In his report, Douglas MacMillan said the Trump administration aims to build seven large-scale holding centers that can hold as many as 80,000 immigrants in warehouses at a time.
One senior ICE official told the Post the move is “similar to an Amazon Prime warehouse, but for people.”
Newly arrested detainees would spend weeks at intake locations before being transferred into one of the facilities designed to hold anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people each.
The Post noted acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said at a conference back in April that “the administration needs to treat deportations like a business.”
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
