Federal immigration authorities on Friday asked contractors whether they could lease and install prefabricated detention units at about 50 enforcement offices across the continental U.S., saying arrests have outpaced the space those offices have to process and hold the people they detain.
A draft work statement released with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement request calls for a “Field Detention Unit” of about 900 square feet at each office.
The unit “must already be designed for the intended purpose of secure holding and processing of detained individuals,” the draft says.
Each detention unit would sit on asphalt or concrete behind an office's existing security fence, with a counter for processing people and a separate holding area fitted with a toilet and sink for detainees according to the draft work statement.
The agency also wants a 300-square-foot unit for interviewing people in custody and a 60-square-foot “Virtual Immigration Court Unit” for hearings run by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that operates the immigration courts. Both must also be designed for their purpose before delivery.
The draft says several of the agency’s enforcement offices “have exceeded their organic processing and temporary holding capabilities,” citing an “exceptionally high operational tempo with increased arrests.” It says temporary buildings are “urgently needed” to add holding capacity and “non-detained hearing space on site.”
The request does not identify the field offices.
The draft sets no occupancy limit or maximum length of stay for the holding units, and it makes no mention of beds. The units must be climate controlled, furnished for operational use and cleaned three times a week.
The contractor would install and maintain the units, and the draft does not assign it any role in guarding or caring for the people held inside.
The request is market research rather than a contract offer. ICE asked companies to describe similar work from the past three years and to estimate how quickly they could deliver each type of unit, with responses due Oct. 6. The agency gives no estimate of cost or contract length, but states that upon award, the contractor must deliver a mobilization plan within 10 days.
The draft work statement ICE posted to SAM.gov appears to have originated from a GEO Group account. A review of the file's metadata performed by Project Salt Box shows that the Word document used to produce the PDF lists its company as “GEO Group Inc.,” the private prison operator that is one of ICE's largest detention contractors. The author’s name, which this publication has withheld, matches the name of a GEO Group Contract Compliance Manager in Boca Raton, Fla.
ICE field offices already contain holding rooms, which agency standards for decades limited to stays of 12 hours.
On June 24, 2025, the agency waived that rule in an internal memo to field office directors, extending the limit to 72 hours “absent exceptional circumstances.” Over the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term, 18% of people placed in ICE hold rooms were kept longer than 12 hours, up from about 4% in 2024.
In Maryland, a class action on behalf of everyone held in holding cells at ICE’s Baltimore Field Office argues the waiver violates the Administrative Procedure Act and that ICE regularly holds people there for days at a time.
The courtroom units would arrive as immigration courts move some hearings into Homeland Security space.
In New York, the court began sending immigrants without lawyers on Sept. 14 to new hearing rooms inside 26 Federal Plaza, where DHS and the court have barred observers, reporters and attorneys. People in those rooms appear by video before a judge, a DHS attorney and a court clerk, each in a different part of the building.
Under the draft, the contractor must work with ICE’s facilities office and the General Services Administration to get each installation approved “in a manner that is acceptable with the building owner.”
It must also build and maintain the utilities and parking needed to provide what the draft calls “a safe, secure, and compliant detention environment.”
Representatives for GEO Group and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Who are these contractors and why is it legal for them to be in this atrocious business?
They want “portables” like schools add when their enrollment exceeds their classroom space and student limits…PORTABLE JAILS! UNBELIEVABLE!! This is no longer the country I grew up in, that family has served, protected and fought for since our Revolution!!