Which ICE regions experienced the largest increases in average daily detained populations in 2025, and do those changes correlate with inspection-posting declines?
Executive summary
ICE’s detention surge in 2025 was concentrated in southwestern and southeastern states — with Texas, Louisiana, California, Georgia and Arizona housing the largest average daily populations — even as independent oversight inspections fell sharply nationwide, creating a suggestive but not provable link between rising detainee loads and declining inspection transparency [1] [2] [3]. Public reporting shows specific large expansions (notably Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, El Paso) that both drove regional ADP spikes and featured documented inspection failures, but the federal record does not publish region-by-region inspection tallies that would permit a definitive causal correlation [4] [5] [3].
1. Biggest regional ADP increases: the Southwest and Southeast ballooned
Multiple data compilations identify the largest concentrations of people in ICE custody in Texas, Louisiana, California, Georgia and Arizona during 2025, with Texas alone averaging roughly 13,400 people daily as of mid‑September and other states — Louisiana (~7,500), California (~3,800), Georgia (~3,000) and Arizona (~2,700) — rounding out the top five [1]. These state totals reflect both long‑standing detention hubs and rapid facility expansions in 2025 — including tent camps and new contracting with private and state partners — that pushed average daily populations to levels not seen since 2019 or earlier [2] [1].
2. Facility-level spikes that drove regional totals
The surge was not only geographic but institutional: a handful of very large sites came online or expanded in 2025 and accounted for outsized ADP growth, most notably Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss in El Paso, which reportedly averaged thousands of beds and became one of the single largest sites in late 2025 [4] [5]. TRAC and Vera data underline that a relatively small set of facilities holds a majority of the population on any given day, concentrating the impact of policy changes into particular regions and camps [2] [6].
3. Oversight collapsed as populations rose — national picture
Investigations by the Project On Government Oversight document a stark national decline in published Office of Detention Oversight inspection reports in 2025 despite statutory requirements and congressional funding for biannual inspections at facilities that meet certain ADP thresholds; POGO found fewer inspection reports and identified that many facilities lacked the twice‑per‑year reviews mandated after Congress’s 2019–2021 actions [3]. That precipitous drop in documented oversight occurred at the same time ICE’s reported detained population rose to record heights — a juxtaposition that watchdogs say increases risk of harm and mortality in detention [3] [7].
4. Regional correlation: suggestive patterns, not proven causation
There is a clear geographic overlap between where ADP climbed the most (Southwest and Southeast) and reporting of inspection shortfalls and facility failures; for example, Camp East Montana’s rapid activation in El Paso was later associated with internal inspection findings and civil‑rights complaints alleging failure to meet standards [4] [5]. However, the public sources do not provide a comprehensive, regionally disaggregated time series of inspection counts or outcomes that would allow a statistical test proving that regions with the largest ADP increases experienced proportionally larger inspection‑posting declines — POGO documents overall declines and Vera/TRAC document ADP growth and facility concentration, but region‑by‑region inspection tallies are not published in a way that lets reporters establish direct causality [3] [6] [2].
5. Competing explanations and the official stance
ICE and its ERO/HSC components publicly assert that custody management and medical oversight structures exist to maintain standards and that detainees are housed near arrest locations to minimize custody time, presenting a defense against claims that inspection declines equal abandonment of oversight [8]. Critics, watchdog lawyers and researchers counter that the combination of a rapid policy‑driven detention surge, heavy reliance on nontraditional and private sites, and fewer published inspections creates an “invitation” to lapses and increased risk — a perspective advanced by POGO and advocates who tie the rise in in‑custody deaths to both crowding and reduced review [3] [7].