ACLU Sues Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Records Regarding Potential Expansion of Immigration Detention

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records regarding the agency’s potential plans to expand immigration detention across the country. The ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in August 2024 in response to ICE’s contract solicitations to “identify possible detention facilities” in areas covered by the Chicago, Harlington, Newark, and Salt Lake City Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Offices, signaling an intent to contract for additional detention beds in these regions.

“ICE has repeatedly failed to provide transparency into its immigration detention system, including its plans to expand detention in states where no facilities currently exist,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The mass immigration detention machine wastes billions of taxpayer dollars to lock people up in inhumane and life-threatening conditions – and these documents are a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding what prisons and jails ICE may seek to further expand this abusive system.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, demands that ICE comply with the Freedom of Information Act and immediately turn over the requested records to the ACLU. The filing also comes on the heels of advocacy from immigrants’ rights groups and medical experts who have repeatedly called out ICE’s history of abuse, pervasive medical neglect, and disregard for the dignity of people in its custody. In recent months, members of Congress have written multiple letters to the Department of Homeland Security raising concern about expansion of immigration detention and urging DHS and ICE to reject contracts with for-profit prison corporations. Advocates warn that additional contracts will undoubtedly lead to further abuses in immigration detention.

Already, ICE is exceeding its FY24 budget and congressionally approved detention levels, detaining approximately 37,000 people each day. Efforts to expand the mass detention machine would lay the groundwork for future administrations to detain more immigrants, and under a potential Trump administration, could help to facilitate plans for mass detention and deportation.

This filing is available here.

The ACLU’s FOIA request is available here. A second FOIA request for information for new West Coast immigration detention facilities is available here.