ICE Secretly Leases Space In Advance Of Minneapolis-Style CA Surge: Report

The federal government is quietly purchasing warehouses for a massive expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, according to documents posted online Friday by a Republican congressman. Additionally, a federal official said that California and New York are among the "next" for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge similar to the campaign in Minneapolis, with plans to embed hundreds of new ICE offices in Sacramento, Irvine, Santa Ana and Van Nuys, according to an explosive report by WIRED.

Federal immigration officials plan to spend $38.3 billion to boost detention capacity to 92,600 beds, a document released Friday shows, as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement quietly purchases warehouses to turn into detention and processing facilities.

Republican New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte posted the document online amid tension over ICE's plans to convert a warehouse in his state into a 500-bed processing center.

It said ICE plans 16 regional processing centers with a population of 1,000 to 1,500 detainees, whose stays would average three to seven days. Another eight large-scale detention centers would be capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for periods averaging less than 60 days.

The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities.

According to the WIRED report, ICE is leasing space in two Orange County cities — at an office park in Irvine and at the federal building in Santa Ana.

"This is news to me," Irvine Mayor Larry Agran told The Orange County Register. "We try to maintain some channels of communication with Border Patrol, with ICE, with Homeland Security... it's not easy to do. They're not very cooperative at all, and [not] letting us know what they're planning, what their activities consist of."

City officials are frequently unable to get details from ICE until a property sale is finalized.

The Irvine building, located at 2020 Main St., is situated near John Wayne Airport and several fast-casual restaurants. The Santa Ana Federal Building is located within blocks of a church and the OC Civic Center.

In Van Nuys — a neighborhood in Los Angeles — ICE is expanding offices at the James C. Corman federal building, that also houses offices for the IRS and Health and Human Services, the report said.

In San Diego, federal agents are allegedly leasing offices at the Edward J. Schwartz Courthouse and federal building, WIRED reported.

In Sacramento, ICE has installed security features at the John E. Moss building ahead of further expansion, according to WIRED.

The so-called "ICE surge" is funded by $80 billion in funding from President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which allowed the agency to more than double its workforce to 22,000 officers.

According to internal records obtained by WIRED, in order to accommodate this escalation in hiring, the General Services Administration created a dedicated team to secure 250 new locations nationwide.

The newly released document refers to “non-traditional facilities” and comes as ICE has quietly bought at least seven warehouses — some larger than 1 million square feet (92,900 square meters) — in the past few weeks in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas. Warehouse purchases in six cities were scuttled when buyers decided not to sell under pressure from activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about Ayotte's comments or the new document. But it previously confirmed that it was looking for more detention space, although it objected to calling the sites “warehouses,” saying in a statement that they would be “very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”

The news is proof of ICE's growing presence across the nation in a myriad of ways, including surveillance. Officials in San Clemente recently voted to install border patrol cameras on the city's idyllic coastline in an effort to crack down on migrant panga boats.

This week, Los Angeles County released a report on the economic impact of the increase in immigration enforcement activity from July to September.

Approximately $3.7 million in business losses occurred during that surge, according to a report commissioned by Los Angeles County Supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn

The county Department of Economic Opportunity in partnership with the LA County Economic Development Corporation analyzed the economic impact of the crackdown on small businesses, workers and communities across the region.

Some 311 individual respondents participated in a survey to share how federal immigration enforcement impacted their businesses, with the following results:

-- 90% of business interview respondents perceived growing distrust across federal and local governments;

-- 82% of businesses surveyed reported negative impacts from immigration enforcement, with 44% losing over half of their revenue;

-- 52% experienced reduced daily sales/revenue, and 51% reported decreased customer traffic; and

-- Business owners who were surveyed, whose operations were located in curfew and protest-affected areas, reported more than $200,000 in property damage.

Of the survey respondents, 59% of employers expressed concern about maintaining their current workforce, 70% of businesses experienced staffing shortages following enforcement action, and 33% of employers said workers were afraid to report to work.

Findings also showed that bus ridership on high-vulnerability lines declined by approximately 17,000 monthly riders compared to baseline levels. In downtown Los Angeles, a curfew was enacted between June 10-16 due to anti-ICE protests, which resulted in $840 million in output losses, the report said.

The report said those here illegally or with various legal status contributes an estimated $253.9 billion in total economic output, equivalent to 17% of the county's gross domestic product.

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.