What is the current capacity of ICE detention centers in the US?
Executive summary
Current official figures and independent trackers show that the United States is holding historically high numbers of people in immigration detention — roughly 65,000–72,000 people in ICE custody in late 2025 and early 2026 — but there is no single definitive public “contractual bed capacity” number published by ICE; analysts instead triangulate capacity from facility contract data, ICE counts, and reporting of proposed warehouse expansions [1] [2] [3]. Reporting from the government, watchdogs, and press reveals a detention system whose operational population often approaches or exceeds contractual capacities at specific facilities, even as federal plans seek to expand total bed capacity well above current usage [4] [5] [6].
1. What the public numbers say about how many people are detained right now
ICE’s bi‑monthly statistics and independent trackers reported that ICE custody held about 65,735 people as of November 30, 2025 in one dataset, while contemporaneous reporting and ICE website snapshots cited totals above 70,000 — for example a line in late‑2025 reporting of roughly 72,110 people in ICE facilities [1] [2]. Independent compilations from research organizations like TRAC and Vera corroborate that the detained population reached record highs in 2025 and into FY2026, with some large facilities averaging thousands of detainees each day [1] [7].
2. Why “capacity” is not a single, settled number
ICE does not publish a single nationwide “authorized bed” number that neatly equals maximum capacity; instead the system is a patchwork of federal, local, and privately run contracts, each with its own contractual capacity limits, and many facilities are used flexibly or temporarily beyond those numbers [3] [4]. Investigations have documented specific facilities running significantly over their contractual capacity on particular dates — for example, Krome North held nearly three times its contractual maximum on at least one night in FY2025 — illustrating that the practical, operational capacity can differ from contract limits [4].
3. The landscape: hundreds of facilities, concentrated populations
Advocacy groups and mapping projects count more than 200 jails, prisons, and other sites that house ICE detainees nationwide, and twenty large facilities account for a majority of the detained population on any given day, with several individual centers averaging over 1,500–2,000 people per day in 2024–2025 [8] [9]. TRAC reported that certain Texas and Georgia facilities, among others, were consistently among the highest‑populated sites, reflecting regional concentrations rather than evenly distributed capacity [1] [9].
4. Expansion plans: what government solicitations and reporting reveal
Multiple news investigations and leaked or draft ICE solicitations in late 2025 and early 2026 describe plans to renovate industrial warehouses and open several large holding centers that together could add capacity in the tens of thousands — reporting cited proposals to house more than 80,000 detainees across new sites and leaked planning targets as high as nearly 108,000 beds contemplated by the administration [6] [2] [5]. Those plans, however, are proposals and solicitations — not the same as beds already online — and the media and watchdogs note political and infrastructural pushback in many proposed host communities [6] [10].
5. What analysts and oversight groups emphasize about capacity versus crowding
Researchers caution that counting detained people (the census) is different from measuring “contractual capacity” or safe operating capacity, and many facilities have documented episodes of overcrowding where detainee counts exceeded contractual limits — one review found dozens of facilities exceeded contractual capacity at least once in a recent six‑month window [4]. Vera and other monitoring groups underscore that ICE’s network includes federal, for‑profit, and local jails whose capacities and conditions vary widely, so national capacity figures mask local crises of overcrowding and strain on services [7] [11].
6. Bottom line and limits of available reporting
The best public synthesis: as of late 2025–early 2026 ICE was detaining roughly 65,000–72,000 people, the U.S. immigration detention system spans more than 200 facilities with many concentrated high‑population centers, and federal planning documents and press reports indicate ambitions to add capacity on the order of tens of thousands more — but there is no single, authoritative, publicly posted nationwide contractual capacity figure from ICE to confirm a precise maximum number [1] [2] [8] [6] [4]. Reporting limits: this account relies on ICE snapshots, investigative reporting, and third‑party trackers; where sources do not provide a definitive nationwide contractual bed total, that absence is noted rather than asserted otherwise [3] [4].