Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants to create a shadow deportation network in Texas
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is exploring plans to launch a statewide private transportation system in Texas. The agency envisions a continuous operation, in which immigrants detained in 254 counties are transferred to ICE facilities and assembly sites across the state.
Early planning documents reviewed by WIRED describe a statewide transportation network designed for consistent transfers of detainees across Texas, with ICE estimating an average of 100 miles per trip. Each county will have its own small team of contractors working around the clock to collect immigrants from local authorities authorized by ICE. It’s an exact transfer of the actual detention process into the hands of a private security company — authorized to carry firearms and perform transportation duties “in any and all local, county, state, and ICE locations.”
The proposal comes amid the Trump administration’s renewed push to expand domestic immigration enforcement. Over the past year, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has spent billions on detention contracts, Reactivating mutual authorization agreements With local police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was directed to expand the scope of removal operations within the United States. The plan fits neatly into that strategy. A logistical framework for a system designed to move detainees faster and farther, with fewer federal agents ever seen in public.
The proposed system surfaced this week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a market investigation titled “Texas Transportation Subsidies.” The list includes draft operational requirements that define staffing levels, vehicle readiness rates, and response times, along with detailed questions for vendors about cost structures, regional coverage, and command and control capabilities.
According to the document, ICE envisions 254 transportation centers statewide — one for each Texas county — continuously staffed by two armed contractors. Vehicles must be able to respond within 30 minutes, while maintaining an 80 percent readiness rate across three daily shifts. ICE’s staffing model adds 50 percent vacation and turnover, increasing staffing needs by half above the baseline needed to keep the system running without interruption.
WIRED magazine estimates this would require more than 2,000 full-time employees, as well as a fleet of hundreds of SUVs crisscrossing the state at all times.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What the plan describes, in essence, is a shadow logistics network built on agreements with local police departments under the 287(g) program. These once symbolic gestures of cooperation today serve as a pipeline for real-time biometric checks and arrest notifications. Relocation is just the next logical step. For ICE, a closed loop will be created: Local authorities Arrest of immigrants. Private contractors Deliver them either to a local jail (paid to house detainees) or to a detention site run by a private company. The plan also states that contractors must maintain their own dispatch and command and control systems to manage movements statewide.