How many ICE detention facilities are currently under contract and what are their individual contractual capacities?
Executive summary
As of a TRAC analysis dated April 14, 2025, ICE had contractual bed capacity nationwide of 62,913 across 181 authorized detention facilities, while the agency held 48,056 people the prior night—an average utilization of about 76% [1]. Older federal audits and advocacy FOIA disclosures show the number and mix of contracted sites has shifted over time [2] [3], and no single public source provided a complete, current facility-by-facility list of every contractual capacity in the materials supplied here.
1. The headline number: TRAC’s spring‑2025 snapshot
TRAC’s release is the clearest single snapshot in the available reporting: it reports ICE’s national contractual capacity was 62,913 beds across 181 authorized detention facilities as of April 14, 2025, and that ICE held 48,056 detainees the night before—meaning roughly three out of four contracted beds were in use overall [1]. TRAC also emphasizes local variation—some facilities were over their contractual limits while many were under‑utilized—so the national aggregate masks sharp facility‑level differences [1].
2. The historical baseline and change over time
A 2019 GAO audit found ICE held contracts or agreements with 233 facilities (185 of which it actually used to hold detainees that year), establishing a pre‑2020 baseline that contrasts with TRAC’s later 181 authorized facilities figure and suggests significant turnover in contracts and site usage since FY2019 [2]. That divergence underscores how contract counts can change rapidly because ICE uses multiple contract types (IGSAs, DIGSAs, CDFs, SPCs) and activates or deactivates sites as policy and operational needs evolve [4] [2].
3. Facility‑level capacities: examples and limits of public reporting
Public reporting and FOIA disclosures provide intermittent, facility‑level numbers—illustratively, ACLU FOIA documents state the Rio Grande Processing Center has a physical capacity of 1,900 beds but, under its contract, is contracted to detain up to 672 people for ICE at the time of that disclosure [3]. Industry and advocacy reporting likewise note reactivations and bed counts—GEO Group reactivated four facilities adding 6,600 beds, and private operators claim thousands more beds can be made available—yet those commercial figures reflect corporate capacity offers and do not always map cleanly to current ICE contractual commitments [5].
4. Why an exact, up‑to‑the‑minute facility list is hard to produce from available sources
Contracting structures, guaranteed‑minimum payments, and a mix of county, federal, and private operators complicate straightforward counting: GAO documented ICE’s use of guaranteed minimums and that contracted bed inventories and paid‑for but unused beds can be substantial [2]. Advocacy projects and FOIA troves catalogue many facilities historically (NIJC’s lists run into the hundreds), but those archives include locations no longer under active ICE contract and facilities that host multiple federal detainee populations—so they cannot be cited here as a definitive current roster without direct, updated ICE contract data [6].
5. Where to find the granular facility capacities and why cross‑checking matters
ICE’s FOIA library and the agency’s detention management pages are the originating sources for contracts and detention standards and should be consulted for authoritative contract documents and current facility listings [7] [8]. Independent databases and watchdog analyses—TRAC, Vera, NIJC, ACLU—are essential for cross‑checking because they surface FOIA disclosures, corporate filings, and inspection histories that reveal discrepancies between physical capacity, contractual capacity, and actual usage [1] [4] [6] [3].
6. Competing narratives and implicit agendas in the data
Private prison companies and advocacy organizations frame capacity changes differently: industry pieces highlight reactivated beds and corporate offers of tens of thousands of beds as evidence of available capacity, while advocacy groups emphasize opacity, guaranteed minimums, and a sprawling network that can obscure oversight—both perspectives are supported by reporting in the provided sources [5] [6] [2]. TRAC’s facility‑by‑facility approach provides empirical clarity on aggregate contractual capacity [1], but it does not substitute for direct FOIA contract documents when precise, current per‑facility contractual maximums are required [7].