Where ICE Takes People—And Where They Send Them NextNEWS | 11 July 2026Transcript
Since January, ICE has made more than 100,000 arrests,
double compared to last year,
leading to over 60,000 migrants currently in detention.
Nearly 70% of them don't have a criminal conviction.
The White House set a quota of 3,000 arrests per day,
and ICE's budget is now 170 billion,
with plans to double the force to about 20,000.
Immigration has become the centerpiece
of the Trump administration.
In this video, we'll track
where migrants are being arrested,
where exactly they're locked up,
and where they're getting deported to.
Wired tracked the data.
This is Immigration and Customs Enforcement On The Grid.
[Cop 1] Move out the way!
[Cop 2] Move back, move back!
First, let's level set.
From January to June of 2024,
under former President Joe Biden, ICE carried out
about 49,000 arrests.
In that same timeframe in 2025,
now under President Trump, the number of arrests has surged
by about 122%.
So where in America is this happening?
Texas alone represented about 23.2%
of all arrests nationwide.
Florida followed with about 11%, California with 7%,
Georgia with 4%, and Arizona with 3%.
The day he entered office,
Trump scrapped Biden's policy that protected schools,
hospitals, churches, and courthouses.
Since then, ICE can operate in virtually any public space,
making everywhere fair game.
We've all seen images
of ICE agents lurking in the hallways of courthouses waiting
to arrest migrants when they step out of their hearings.
[Speaker] Oh God, oh God.
[speaker speaking Spanish]
This type of raid happens frequently here
at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.
Asylum claims and deportation hearings are held here,
but it's a catch 22 for many.
By showing up for your court hearing, you risk arrest,
and by skipping it, you risk deportation.
Work site raids are at an all time high.
Individuals accused of entering the country illegally
at a Hyundai plant in Ellabel, Georgia were arrested.
Many were from South Korea.
It was one of the largest single site operations
in the agency's history.
But the fallout from the raid
has basically caused a diplomatic crisis with South Korea
because most of the people working there
were not here illegally.
Top industries employing undocumented immigrants
include food services, waste management, manufacturing,
agriculture, healthcare, transportation, warehousing
and educational services.
And at the top of the list,
the industry, perhaps the hardest hit is construction.
At a construction site in Mobile, Alabama, it was reported
that fears of a raid caused about half the workforce
to stay away, delaying the completion
of an 84,000 square foot recreation center.
This chilling effect has also largely impacted
the agriculture industry.
Farmers have said that ICE raids in their areas
have driven workers away.
In California, where about a third of America's vegetables
and three quarters of its fruits are grown,
roughly half of the state's farm workers lack legal status.
In Ventura County, an agricultural hub
that generates billions of dollars annually,
much of the crop is harvested
by undocumented immigrant labor.
A recent study estimated that a reduction
of the agricultural workforce by 20 to 40%
would result in an estimated three to $7 billion
in lost crops
and driving produce prices up by anywhere
from five to 12%.
Once arrested, but before they're locked up
in a detainment facility,
a migrant is taken to a short-term transfer hub
like the Dallas Ice Field Office.
On September 24th,
a rooftop gunman opened fire into the Sally Port,
killing one detainee and critically injuring two others.
ICE held 61,226 people in detention facilities,
and ICE is doubling detention capacity,
aiming for more than 107,000 detainees
across 125 facilities.
So where are these detention centers?
This map is based on public data
and gives us a good overview
of all the locations across the United States.
The bulk of the expansion is happening in Texas, California,
Georgia, and Louisiana.
The red points are private facilities.
In fact, according to the American Immigration Council,
the vast majority
of people held in ICE detention are held in facilities
either owned or operated by private prison companies
such as GEO Group or CoreCivic.
And business is booming.
ICE recently announced a 15 year contract valued
at a billion dollars with GEO Group
to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey.
With a capacity to hold about 1,000 people,
it will become the largest ICE processing
and detention center on the East Coast.
Over in Texas, we see many private facilities.
As of August 18th, the state held over 13,000 detainees,
the most of any state by far.
That's followed by Louisiana,
California, Georgia, and Arizona.
Here are some of the top ICE facilities
with the highest average daily population
as of August 4th, 2025.
First up, Adams County Detention Center
in Natchez, Mississippi.
Adams is one of ICE's biggest hubs.
It averages about 2,100 detainees daily,
the top in the country, and it's owned
and operated by CoreCivic.
Wind Correctional Center in Louisiana is located
in a Gulf Coast region dubbed detention alley,
where 14 of the nation's 20 largest
immigration detention centers are located.
Central Louisiana Ice Processing Center
gained national attention
for detaining Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil.
He spent 104 days in detention,
and he was released when a federal judge ruled
that his detention was unconstitutional.
Over at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center
in Pennsylvania, in August,
activists urged Clearfield County Commissioners
to end the county's contract with ICE and the GEO group
after a 32-year-old Chinese detainee was found unresponsive
in an apparent hanging.
And of course, there's the infamous alligator Alcatraz.
Built on the site of abandoned airport
in the Florida Everglades,
the facility's remote location is indeed surrounded
by alligator infested swamps.
Its supporters tout that as a natural deterrent
that reduces the need for costly perimeter security.
In August, a judge blocked the expansion
of alligator Alcatraz,
but on September 5th, an appeals court reversed
that decision and as Governor Ron DeSantis put it,
The facility is now open for business.
Meanwhile, civil rights lawyers are suing saying
that detainees are denied confidential communication
with their attorneys, a First Amendment violation.
These aren't the only accusations ICE has had
over alleged civil rights violations.
Remember Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba,
the US military prison that earned a reputation
for human rights abuses
and allegations of torture in post 9/11 war on terror?
As of July, 2025,
there were a reported 72 immigrant detainees
from 26 countries being held there.
On August 29th, Human Rights Watch called
for a halt transferring immigrants to the naval base,
due to reports that detainees were kept isolated
in unsanitary conditions,
some detainees even reported attempted suicides.
Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Arizona
is run by the private company CoreCivic.
This is where US representative Yassamin Ansari was blocked
by ICE from oversight visits.
Ansari recently held a press conference for a constituent
of hers who's being held there and has leukemia,
and who she says isn't receiving adequate care.
Poor medical care seems to be a recurring theme.
On August 31st while in custody
at the Central Arizona Correctional Complex,
a 32-year-old man from Mexico died.
A fundraising campaign created by his family states
that he passed away alone,
likely from complications related to COVID-19,
without receiving the medical attention he deserved.
According to freedomformigrants.org,
there are currently 144 facilities
with active COVID-19 cases,
and these are just a few of the many reported violations
from around the country.
As of August 24th, 2025, nearly 70.3%
of the more than 60,000 people in ICE detention
had no criminal conviction.
And among those with convictions,
many were from minor offenses such as traffic violations.
About 11% are on an expedited track
for deportation, which means that they can be removed
from the country without a hearing
before an immigration judge.
ICE has deported nearly 200,000 people
since Trump returned to office.
Add to that, almost 150,000 more deportations
from US Customs and Border Protections,
and that puts them on track for the highest level
of formal deportations in a decade.
So how does that compare to other previous presidents?
Here we have Trump's combined total so far,
including his first term,
and Biden's Bush's, Clinton's.
But what about President Obama?
Over the course of his two terms, ICE removals totaled
around 2.4 million undocumented immigrants.
Some sources put that total even higher,
reporting over three million non-citizens removed
during his presidency, more than any other president.
Obama was criticized
for speedy deportations without full court hearings.
But after lawsuits and political pushback,
his administration narrowed enforcement priorities in 2014,
focusing removals on criminals, security threats,
and recent border crossers.
The organization Human Rights First
has tracked more than 40,000 deportation flights
using public data.
Between January 20th and August 31st, 2025,
the Trump administration carried out at least 7,454 flights
a big increase versus the same period last year.
In August, there were an average
of 45 flights a day for a total
of 1,393 immigration enforcement flights.
Of these 240 were flights
that removed people from the United States,
the highest monthly total ever recorded
since tracking began in 2020.
From a detention center,
deportations are carried out by ICE Air Operations,
which stages a total of 12 aircraft at its locations,
including in Mesa, Arizona,
ICE's headquarters for Air Operations, San Antonio
and Brownsville, Texas, Miami, Florida,
and Alexandria, Louisiana, a major hub
where the airport actually has a detention center on site.
Flights removing detained migrants from the US
are usually carried out by private charter companies
under government contract.
Recently, a budget commercial airline Avelo,
signed a contract to run deportation flights
from Mesa using three Boeing 737 aircraft.
The deal stirred political, ethical safety
and labor concerns from flight attendant unions
and local officials.
So where are people actually being sent?
In May of 2025, over half of all deportation flights
went to Central America's Northern Triangle of El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras.
Mexico has received more than 39,000 deportees from the US,
including 6,000 who aren't Mexican citizens.
These arrangements are known as third country deportations.
But perhaps the most controversial
third country deportations have been to El Salvador,
which hosts migrants in its mega prison, Cecot, notorious
for its brutal conditions
that have been condemned by human rights groups.
Trump struck a multimillion dollar deal
with El Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele
to send Venezuelan migrants there.
Kilmar Abrego-Garcia was among those deported
to El Salvador.
He was mistakenly deported there under allegations
of belonging to the notorious MS13 gang.
He was returned in June, but became a symbol of the Trump
administration's controversial deportation policy.
Now, the Trump administration is seeking
to deport him under new charges,
this time, to the African nation of Eswatini.
Abrego-Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
African nations have also been drawn
into third country deportations.
Rwanda agreed to take in 250 migrants.
While in May, the Trump administration attempted
to send eight men to South Sudan, a country in the middle
of conflict that the State Department deems unsafe
for Americans to travel to.
The men were convicted of crimes ranging from murder
to robbery, but had finished or were nearing the end
of their prison sentences.
But the flight to Sudan never made it.
A judge ruled
that the detainees hadn't been given a fair chance
to contest their removals, diverting the flight to Djibouti.
Only one of the men was from South Sudan.
The others came from Laos, Vietnam, Cuba,
Mexico, and Myanmar.
US officials said
that their home countries had refused to accept them.
So this is where we're at right now,
but things are changing really quickly.
The kind of money and manpower now flowing into ICE
and to DHS is already radically changing
immigration enforcement in the US.
But it's not just immigrant populations
that are gonna feel this, we all are.
Whether it's the government combining
and combing through all of our data
in ways that have never happened before,
or restrictions on government services
to people who might have immigrants in their families
or increased surveillance,
or the weaponization of the immigration status
of public figures,
it's going to reshape this country for all of us.
And at Wired, we're gonna be watching.
I'm Vittoria Elliot, thanks for watching On The Grid.
[dramatic music]Author: Condé Nast. Source
