McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Migrants who are detained and booked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents often are kept in detention facilities that are privately managed and operate over-capacity, according to new data.
The nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) found that on April 14, ICE’s contractual capacity nationally was 62,913 — that’s the total number of available beds at 181 authorized detention facilities with which the agency had agreements to house migrants. Nationally, ICE held 48,056 migrants in detention that night, meaning its utilization of beds was just 3 out of 4, or 76%.
But 45 of the 181 facilities exceeded their contractual capacity that night: eight of these facilities exceeded their contractual capacity by at least 100 detainees; 24 exceeded the contract by between 10 to 100 detainees, and the remaining 13 facilities exceeded the contractual capacity by fewer than 10 people, according to the report released Tuesday by TRAC.
Two-thirds, or 30 of the facilities with population counts exceeding capacity that day, were county jails, but only one county jail — in Brazil, Indiana — exceeded capacity by 100 detainees, the report says.
However, 13 facilities, or 29% were operated by private contractors managed by CoreCivic, LaSalle Corrections, and Geo Group, among others, and they account for the majority of facilities that exceeded contractual capacity by at least 100 beds. And two facilities with populations exceeding capacity on April 13 were operated by federal agencies, TRAC says
The Karnes County Detention Facility, operated by the GEO Group in South Texas, is one of the facilities that exceeded contractual capacity during that April 13 snapshot date, TRAC says. In fact it had the third-most days operating over-capacity from October through mid-April, according to the report.
Several facilities operating in Texas were cited for operating over-capacity.
The Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami was cited having the most over-contractual capacity counts from October 2024 through mid-April, according to TRAC. Krome operated triple its capacity limit at least one night in Fiscal Year 2025, the report says.
Other over-capacity facilities include:
- Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, operated by the GEO Group.
- Stewart Detention Center, Lumpkin, Georgia operated by Core Civic.
- Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, operated by LaSalle Corrections
- San Luis Regional Detention Center in San Luis, Arizona, operated by LaSalle Corrections
- The Clay County Justice Center in Brazil, Indiana, operated by the Clay County Sheriff’s Dept.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
