The Future: Next Steps, Part III

Cancelled ICE Detention Center

This concludes our three-part blog,“How ICE Spent a Billion Dollars and Walked Away”

By Alice Bond

The failure of the warehouse program and the deaths of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody reported all over the country are not separate outcomes — they are products of the same system. 

The broader ICE national detention system — which includes private prisons and contracted jail facilities as well as facilities owned by the agency and operated by ICE staff — has become a place where abuse and death are documented outcomes. 

Incidents of mistreatment of detainees range from medical neglect to physical abuse and the shackling of pregnant women, according to a 2026 Human Rights Watch report and U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff’s (Georgia) 2026 Congressional Investigation.  

The mortality rate is on track to reach 60 deaths in 2026, according to the Physicians for Human Rights/Human Rights Watch 2026 Joint Report, “Dying in Detention.” For contrast, deaths under the Biden administration peaked in 2024 — Biden’s fourth year and the single highest annual total at 11 deaths under his administration.

Detained, but no records

Yet, most ICE detainees have no criminal conviction. According to Project 2029’s own policy publication, “10 Steps to Immediately Reform U.S. Immigration Policy,” in 2026 only “about 8% of ICE detainees under the current administration have been convicted of a violent crime. Even among the initial group of migrants flown to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, 75% reportedly had no identifiable criminal record.” And those killed during enforcement operations are often not the targets ICE describes. 

“Clearly, the vast majority of those being detained pose no threat to society,” said Luke Sassa, deputy policy chief of Project 2029. “Yet, we are squandering tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on physically detaining those individuals.”

In the end, ICE’s so-called mega center plan itself, for all its hype of speed and efficiency — for all its promises — did not pay off, according to “Bloomberg Businessweek.” Not for Congress, which appropriated the taxpayer funds, or the private-sector entities that were ready to become stakeholders, as reported by NBC News.

Not for ICE, which, according to its own planning documents, as reported by the American Immigration Council, aimed to increase bed capacity to 92,600 —but opened none of the 11 warehouses as detention centers as of this writing. 

DHS potentially has plans to convert the Roxbury warehouse to a detention facility. But according to the “Jersey Vindicator” as of July 20, 2026, DHS has indicated there is no timeline for a decision. 

And lastly, the plan did not pay off for the small towns scheduled to host the 11 centers, which were never consulted at all, according to NBC News. 

The upshot? Based on court filings, congressional statements, and reporting by “Bloomberg Businessweek,” “Project Salt Box” and the “Jersey Vindicator,” none of the eleven warehouses purchased for the $1.074 billion are operating as of late July 2026.

What the record reveals instead, is a billion-dollar debacle — if not a betrayal of public trust — and a detention operation that evokes an alarming echo of the Japanese internment camps used in World War II. 

In fact, in 2025 ICE opened Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Today it houses 2,700 detainees with a capacity for 5.000, making it the largest federal immigration detention center in history, according to Human Rights Watch, December 2025; NBC News, 2025; and the AP, 2026.  

In 1942, Fort Bliss was also the site of a World War II facility known as the Fort Bliss Enemy Alien Detention Station, authorized under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, confirmed by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and the Texas Historical Commission. It held Japanese, German and Italian nationals classified as enemy aliens.

There is another way, says Sassa. “We have an opportunity to both treat immigrants more humanely, and also save a ton of taxpayer money in the process — to the tune of tens of billions of dollars — that could be redirected toward helping Americans with basic necessities amid a cost -of-living crisis.”

Information on Alternative to Detention Practices (ADP) and other recommendations can be found in Project 2029’s immigration policy: “10 Steps to Immediately Reform U.S. Immigration Policy in 2029.” 

 End of series