U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Wednesday that the agency has purchased land and a facility in San Antonio to expand its detention operations, though officials declined to disclose the location of the property in question.
In a statement to the San Antonio Report, an ICE spokesperson said the purchase is part of a broader national effort to increase detention space.
“ICE purchased land and a facility in San Antonio,” the spokesperson wrote. ”These will not be warehouses — they will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
The agency said the expansion is being carried out under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is aimed at increasing capacity as immigration enforcement activity continues to increase nationwide.
“Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe,” the statement read. “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
The agency cited new federal funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill that has enabled the expansion of detention spaces to “keep these criminals off American streets before they are removed for good from our communities.”
[…]
City officials have said they are not required to be notified of private real estate transactions involving the federal government, adding to the uncertainty surrounding the reports.
The speculation surrounding Oakmont 410 prompted swift and vocal reactions from local and state leaders, many of whom strongly opposed the possibility of a detention facility in the area.
Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert, whose precinct includes the Eastside property, issued a sharply worded statement Wednesday afternoon condemning the expansion of ICE detention centers.
“I am firmly opposed to this facility and have been one of the only elected officials in the nation to successfully block the establishment of these horrific detention centers — one in Universal City and another in San Antonio,” Calvert said.
Calvert compared the spread of detention facilities to tactics used by authoritarian regimes, arguing the expansion was not about immigration enforcement.
“None of this is about immigration. It’s about creating illegal exceptions everywhere. It’s about turning ICE into a secret state police that is permitted to do anything,” he said.” We will fight it, we will dissect those who are financially benefiting, and we will boycott them and hold them accountable under the law.”
The federal government has purchased industrial park warehouses in Far East El Paso County for nearly $123 million to be used as a massive ICE detention center, according to newly filed deeds. The purchase comes as hundreds of residents speak out against the project and city and county leaders question what authority, if any, they have to intervene.
A general warranty deed filed with the county this week shows the property transfer from El Paso Logistics II LLC in Delaware to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was executed Jan. 17. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans a 8,500-capacity mega detention facility on the property off Gateway Boulevard East near Clint. The property falls within the boundaries of the city of Socorro.
[…]
State Rep. Vincent Perez, D-El Paso, on Friday warned about potential fires at the planned mega center, citing the lack of water pressure and infrastructure as dangerous. He urged El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 2 that serves the area to deny a permit for the center. He noted the 2023 fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 detainees and injured 27 others as an example of the potential dangers.
“It’s one thing to have these facilities as they currently exist as industrial warehouses for that purpose, but it’s a whole other ball game if you have intentions of housing thousands of detainees,” Perez said.
The city of San Antonio is not happy about this – per the story, “residents have urged city leaders not to provide utility connections to the site”. Their City Council has passed a resolution directing city staff to evaluate what actions the city can legally take in response. They may have to move very quickly. The good news is that some cities have successfully resisted ICE. But that’s no guarantee of anything anywhere else, even if Henry Cuellar is on board.
There are already multiple ICE detention locations – I saw a map of them the other day but forgot to make note of it and now can’t find it again – and I’ll bet there will be more in Texas. Here’s one overview of what’s happening:
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 11:56 AM
Detention Reports, via this Substack, shows 237 of them already around the country; zooming in on the map it looks like around 20 in Texas, including two in the Houston area. Wired has some recent reporting if you haven’t exceeded their free article quota for the period. I don’t have any big point to make beyond highlighting all this. It’s bad on many levels, and given the state of ICE polling these days it deserves to be an issue in the 2026 campaigns. More here from Slate, and Thursday’s episode of What Next has more.
Anyone who claims that these ICE “detention centers” are just for criminal aliens, or even only non-citizens, is lying to us and themselves. The homeless population is the next lowest fruit to be plucked.
I don’t think y’all understand just how much MAGAs love what ICE is doing. I am shocked at how willing MAGAs are to kowtow to the jack booted thugs and show ID. This is from people who used to warn about the overreach of government. They all support the creation of an unaccountable secret police force and think Noem et al are just what the country needs. They also think that along with the deportations of illegal aliens, cutting off all welfare benefits will force the “lazy welfare slugs” to take all the construction jobs that will be open, and since the illegal aliens are gone, the employers will start paying huge amounts for workers.