Overcrowding plagues detention units amid Trump's immigration blitz

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Source: Axios

11 hours ago


Days without a shower. Sleeping on floors. Two hundred people confined in a space meant for 85.

Some immigration detention units are so crowded that non-citizens arrested in President Trump's crackdown are living in inhumane conditions, attorneys for detainees tell Axios.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's goal of deporting "millions" of people has led officials to jam more than 46,000 detainees into a system designed to hold no more than about 40,000, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records.

The crowding is just one sign of a system under stress:

Officials are scrambling to arrange more detention space across the U.S. and abroad.

They're sending detainees they've deemed as dangerous on controversial — and legally questionable — flights to foreign prisons without giving them court hearings.

And they're monitoring other unauthorized immigrants who've been arrested and released after agreeing to return for their court dates.

Zoom in: At a time when the Department of Homeland Security is desperate for billions more to build an infrastructure that could come close to handling the surge, conditions in the system's detention facilities are deteriorating.

"Oftentimes conditions aren't great, but this seems definitely out of the norm, this type of extended overcrowding," said Paul Chavez, director of the litigation program at Americans for Immigrant Justice.

He said that at a detention center in Miami, about 200 people were being held in a room meant for 85 at one point. One client was held in a room meant for 50 people that was holding 90.

"If you have a building that's meant for 600 people, and now you have twice that in there, it'll inevitably lead to issues," Chavez said.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/23/immigration-detention-overcrowding-trump