Texas officials have announced that they are prepared to offer President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre (567-hectare) plot of land along the US-Mexico border to construct detention facilities for undocumented migrants.
In a letter to Trump, the Texas General Land Office proposed the land be used to build canters for “processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.” Trump has repeatedly vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants and deploy the National Guard to assist with this effort. However, his plan is expected to face significant financial, logistical, and legal challenges, particularly from human rights groups.
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The letter, which was posted online and sent to Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, pointed out that the owner of the land had previously blocked a border wall from being built there and had “actively blocked law enforcement” access.
“This land is essentially farmland, so it’s flat and easy to build on. We can easily put a detention centre here,” said Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham in an interview with Fox News, which first reported the offer.
The Texas state government, which initiated its own border security operation after Trump’s presidency, has generally supported Trump’s push to strengthen the US-Mexico border. Buckingham expressed full support for Trump’s pledge to deport criminals, stating, “I’m 100% on board with the Trump administration’s pledge to get these criminals out of our country.”
However, governors in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, all Democratic-led border states, have stated they will not cooperate with mass deportations.
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In a statement, Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt emphasized the eagerness of local and state officials to see Trump return to office and carry out his mass deportation plans. “President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” she said.
The details of what any new detention facilities might look like remain unclear. Incoming “border czar” Tom Homan has suggested that some facilities could be “soft-sided,” similar to those used by Customs and Border Protection for short-term detentions. Other facilities used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) include brick-and-mortar buildings, and county and state jails, where local jurisdictions receive compensation for housing detainees.
Stephen Miller, a top Trump immigration advisor, previously indicated that the Trump administration would build large holding facilities to serve as staging canters for mass deportations, likely in open areas near the Texas-Mexico border.
A 2024 spending bill signed by President Joe Biden allocated $3.4 million for ICE to house up to 41,500 detainees daily. However, experts warn that if Trump follows through with his mass deportation plans, ICE’s capacity could be quickly exceeded.
Recent reports show that as of November 2, 2023, there were 38,863 immigrant detainees in custody, with more than 12,000 held in Texas.
The Texas offer comes amid opposition from Democratic-run cities and states that have vowed not to cooperate with Trump’s deportation plans. For example, Los Angeles’ city council recently passed a “sanctuary city” ordinance prohibiting local resources from being used to assist federal immigration authorities.
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, noted that Republican-led states are more likely to cooperate with Trump’s immigration policies, creating a “patchwork of protections” across the country. She also suggested that Texas’ new detention facilities could serve as processing canters for undocumented migrants detained in other states, raising questions about the logistics of moving detainees from blue states to red states.
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