(NewsNation) — Detention centers housing immigrants who entered the United States illegally are at full capacity as federal immigration officials seek to find more bed space for those in custody.
The detention centers are currently holding 47,600 migrants, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told reporters Wednesday, according to multiple media reports.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security told reporters that they are working with several federal agencies, including the Marshals Service, Department of Defense and Federal Bureau of Prisons, to find more bed space for detainees, NBC News reported.
The search for more bed space comes after ICE agents have arrested 32,809 migrants since President Donald Trump took office, officials said on the call. Of those who were taken into custody, 14,111 had criminal convictions. An additional 9,980 detainees have pending criminal charges, while 8,718 face immigration-related violations.
NewsNation previously reported that data released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse showed that 52.1% of those in federal custody do not have a criminal record.
The officials told reporters Wednesday that some migrants arrested by ICE are being released from detention on a case-by-case basis from the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program. The migrants are being released due to medical or humanitarian concerns, NBC reported, citing the officials on the call.
According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Congress provided about $3.4 billion to detain an average of 41,500 noncitizens in fiscal year 2024 — that was up from fiscal year 2023, when $2.9 billion was spent on detention space with a daily average of 34,500 noncitizens.
A December 2024 ICE memo indicated that increasing detention capacity by 60,000 beds would require an additional $3.2 billion. The 2024 spending was up from fiscal year 2023, when $2.9 billion was spent to house a daily average of 34,500 detainees.
The search for more detention space comes a week after Trump announced that he would reopen two Texas facilities that were previously used as family detention centers. NewsNation sources said that the number of families assigned to the detention centers is “extremely low.”
“This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law,” the DHS spokesperson told NewsNation.
CoreCivic, Inc., a Tennessee company that manages private prisons, will manage the Texas facilities. The company also recently announced it has modified a government contract to add capacity to its 2,016-bed facility in Northeast Ohio as well as at two other detention centers in Nevada and Oklahoma.
It also modified a contract that would allow ICE to use up to 252 beds at a 2,672-bed prison in Mississippi.
An ICE spokesperson has not responded to emails sent by NewsNation seeking details on how many more beds the agency is seeking to house migrants.