U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking information on a possible 1,000-bed detention center along the I-35 corridor in south Texas.
Illegal border crossings are down under President Donald Trump, but thousands are still coming into the U.S. each month.
“Rather than release those individuals into the United States, as was the policy under the Obama administration, the Trump administration wants to be able to keep them in custody near the border,” says Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.
“It's where a lot of the people who need to be detained are coming from, it's also a major smuggling corridor, and it's also not too far from the border to stage deportation flights and bus trips,” she says.
The plan also calls for hiring more immigration judges.
“If there is a big facility like this, it can have immigration judges stationed right there to take care of these cases, rather than having to transport them to other parts of Texas or other parts of the country,” says Vaughan.
ICE's request for information states: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of Acquisition Management and the Enforcement and Removals Operations divisions are doing market research for the acquisition approach to re-compete the current South Texas Detention Complex contract. The agency is soliciting feedback to identify potentially interested vendors, the potential location, and type of facilities that may be proposed should a Request for Proposals be competed.