Illegal Immigrant Detention Surges Under Trump Compared To Biden

The number of illegal immigrants in federal detention centers has risen 50% since President Donald Trump took office in January, Axios reported Saturday.

Government data shows a record 60,000 illegal immigrants are being held in long-term detention facilities, Newsmax reported. That is a substantial increase from the roughly 39,000 detainees reported at the end of the Biden administration.

The total does not include migrants held at newer facilities such as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a detention center in the Florida Everglades that has drawn criticism from Democrats.

“It’s evident that the numbers being published by ICE about people held in long-term residential facilities is severely undercounting the number of people who are in ICE custody at any given moment,” Amelia Dagen, a staff attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told Axios.

Meanwhile, on Friday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, ordered Alligator Alcatraz to be shut down, citing environmental concerns.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said he would not be deterred by the ruling.

Over the past two months, the Trump administration has moved to dramatically increase the number of detention centers to house the thousands of illegal immigrants detained by ICE.

In June, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Indiana’s Camp Atterbury and New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will be used to temporarily hold detainees before deportation.

Camp Atterbury, 40 miles south of Indianapolis, spans 34,000 acres and is operated by the Indiana National Guard.

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, 18 miles south of Trenton, covers about 42,000 acres and includes units from all U.S. military branches.

Both facilities will be outfitted as “soft-sided holding facilities” with tent-like walls and fencing to secure beds, similar to the setup at “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida.

In July, the Trump administration announced it had awarded a $1.2 billion contract to a Virginia-based company to build the nation’s largest detention center in Texas.

The new center at Fort Bliss in El Paso will house up to 5,000 illegal immigrants as part of the administration’s crackdown on immigration violations.

Last fall, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan gave specific instructions to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to keep their records intact as they relate to the then years-long crisis at the border before leaving office.

The Ohio Republican representative wanted the records preserved before the administration left in January, before President Trump was inaugurated, Just The News reported at the time.

Jordan expressed concerns that the two men and their departments would eradicate the records before they left office.

“This letter serves as a formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials related to the Biden-Harris Administration’s enforcement of federal immigration law,” the Ohio representative said in both letters.

“You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information … that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry,” he said.

Federal law requires Cabinet members and political appointees to preserve all of their records.

The Biden administration moved swiftly and discreetly to implement new policies aimed at easing restrictions on migrants who entered the U.S. illegally in a last-minute effort to counter President Trump’s immigration crackdowns and mass deportations, sources told the New York Post.

And New York City was set to be the focal point of these changes, the outlet added.

The outgoing administration introduced an ICE Portal app in early December, specifically in New York City, which enabled migrants to complete check-ins with ICE remotely, eliminating the need for in-person visits to local ICE offices, it said.

Homeland Security sources told The Post that the app could make it easier for migrants to evade authorities, citing concerns over its reliability and noting that glitches have plagued the software, the outlet further noted.