ICE detainees reportedly being held in Atlanta prison
ATLANTA, Ga. - The federal prison in Atlanta is one of the places the Trump istration is housing people rounded up in immigration busts, sources tell The Associated Press.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to say how many immigration detainees it is taking in, or which prison facilities are being used.
However, three people familiar with the matter told the AP that authorities are using federal jails in Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia and federal prisons in Atlanta; Leavenworth, Kansas; and Berlin, New Hampshire.
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The Miami jail alone is set to receive up to 500 detainees, the people said.
An influx of immigration detainees could put yet more strain on the Bureau of Prisons, which AP reporting revealed has been plagued by severe understaffing, violence and other problems. The agency is seeking to temporarily move employees from its other facilities to help with immigrant detention.
The Bureau of Prisons is the Justice Department’s biggest agency with more than 30,000 employees, 122 facilities, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion. In December, the agency said it was closing one prison and idling six prison camps to address “significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources.”
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A message seeking comment was left for ICE.
Trump has vowed to deport millions of the estimated 11.7 million people in the U.S. illegally. ICE currently has the budget to detain only about 41,000 people and the istration has not said how many detention beds it needs to achieve its goals.
Many detainees are taken to ICE processing centers, privately operated detention facilities or local prisons and jails it contracts with.
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On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said a second flight of detainees landed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Immigrant rights groups sent a letter Friday demanding access to people who have been sent to Guantanamo Bay, saying the base should not be used as a “legal black hole.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that more than 8,000 people have been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Of them, 461 were released for reasons that included medical conditions and lack of detention capacity, she said.
ICE averaged 787 arrests a day from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31, compared to a daily average of 311 during a 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 during former President Joe Biden’s istration. ICE has stopped publishing daily arrest totals.
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