Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration condemns Trump admin warehouse ICE plans

The Trump administration is advancing plans to nearly double federal immigration detention capacity by the end of Fiscal Year 2026.

Spending $38.3 billion from last year’s reconciliation bill, the initiative will open eight mega-centers capable of detaining 7,000 to 10,000 people each. These massive warehouse-style facilities will hold thousands of migrant families simultaneously.

The scale has no precedent in American history except for the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in the 1940s.

The private prison industry stands to gain the most from this expansion.

Bishop Brendan J. Cahill, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, issued a direct condemnation of the warehouse-scale detention model.

Cahill stated the federal government lacks a positive track record with detaining large numbers of people, especially families, and has opposed expansion of family detention due to harmful impacts on children.

“The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American. Whatever their immigration status, these are human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and this is a moral inflection point for our country.”