Dallas County Could Be Home to Massive New ICE Detention Facility, Report Says

Nearly a year into President Donald Trump’s second administration, the signs that his controversial immigration policies will continue to show themselves in many ways are only growing more frequent. Along with near-daily headlines involving eye-popping statistics, arrests and deportations, a recent Washington Post report outlines a new plan that calls for Dallas County to soon be the home of the nation’s second-largest ICE detention facility. 

“The Trump administration is seeking contractors to help it overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system in a plan that includes renovating industrial warehouses to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time, according to a draft solicitation,” the Post reported on Dec. 24. 

According to the documents reviewed by the paper, the aim of the plan is to “speed up deportations by establishing a deliberate feeder system,” which is not logistically possible at present. Proposed new, large detention facilities would, according to the draft solicitation, be placed near “major logistical hubs.” 

If the Dallas-Fort Worth area is anything, it’s a major logistical hub, so it’s of little surprise that Hutchins, in Dallas County, just a bit southeast of downtown Dallas, is one of the seven proposed spots for new detention facilities that would hold thousands of people at once. The proposed sites in the draft are located in cities, counties or states led by Republican officials who have demonstrated a pro-Trump stance and support for the president’s immigration policies. 

According to the Post, the Hutchins warehouse would hold up to 9,500 detainees, nearly triple the amount that the largest current ICE detention facility, a makeshift tent encampment at Fort Bliss, can hold. That number stands out even more when compared to the 700 or so that the current closest ICE detention center to Dallas, the Prairieland Detention Center near Alvarado, reportedly holds. 

The plans call for the renovated warehouses to have restroom and shower facilities, as well as medical units, recreational facilities, kitchens and housing for families that are detained together. But the fact that the government wants to place so many detainees together in an effort to deport as many as possible as quickly as possible leaves some advocates less than impressed with the proposed blueprints. 

Tania Wolf, an advocate with the National Immigration Project who is based in New Orleans, near another proposed new detention center, told the Post. “It’s dehumanizing. You’re treating people, for lack of a better term, like cattle.”

The promise to begin mass deportations as soon as possible was arguably Trump’s most controversial pledge following his 2024 election victory. As of December 14, more than 68,400 people are in ICE custody, a record high. 

Contrary to early statements from Trump and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who often declared that only the “worst of the worst” undocumented criminals would be detained and deported, many non-criminal immigrants have been held. According to recent reports, more than 75,000 of the people detained by ICE in the first nine months of 2025, at least a third of all ICE arrests during that time, did not have criminal records. 

On Monday, the Observer reported from a press conference where the family of Maher Tarabishi, a Palestinian man living in North Texas detained by ICE in October, pleaded for his release. Tarbishi is being held at the Bluebonnett Detention Center north of Abilene, has no criminal record and is the primary caregiver for his son, Wael, who suffers from a rare neurological disorder that has caused him to be hospitalized twice since his father was arrested. Tarabishi is but the latest example of a North Texas resident being held by ICE who would likely not have been a candidate for deportation under previous administrations.

At this point, the plans for new dentinon facilities are in their early stages, and the Post article notes that the draft isn’t final and could change. The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about the proposed plan and did not confirm any of the paper’s findings. 

Texas, as Trump-friendly a state as there is, thanks to the enthusiastic support of Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton, is the only state with more than one of the proposed new detention sites. Baytown, outside of Houston, is listed in the draft solicitation as the second Texas warehouse site. San Antonio, along with El Paso and Los Fresnos, in the Rio Grande Valley, are noted as possible sites for new ICE processing centers, where detainees would go through before being “funnelled” to the larger detention facilities. These new processing facilities would act in a similar fashion to the Dallas ICE field office on Stemmons Freeway, the site of the September shooting that saw a gunman kill two detainees and injure another from the top of a nearby office building.