To put that number in perspective, ICE reported that 14,195 adults were detained at the end of the Trump administration, a figure impacted by Covid health protocols. Based on the bi-monthly data ICE posted on its website, the number of immigrants ICE detained generally grew over the entire Biden presidency and ended at a figure over two and a half times the detention numbers at the end of the Trump presidency.

In a trend that has been consistent for many years, ICE detention has concentrated in particular facilities, most of which are in southwestern or southeastern states in the US. The report features the twenty largest facilities as of the final statistical release made during the Biden administration. Altogether, these twenty facilities hold 59 percent of ICE’s detained population on any given day.

Adams County Detention Center in Natchez, Mississippi, had the largest detainee population at a single facility at the end of the Biden presidency. Almost one in twenty individuals held by ICE were detained in Natchez. Among other large detention centers, South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas and Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia both held more than 1,500 adults each. For-profit immigrant detention facilities still hold the vast majority of individuals detained by ICE. As of January 2025, private companies managed all twenty of the top twenty private detention centers. All told, 86 percent of ICE detainees were held in facilities run by for-profit entities.

ICE is required to publish detention statistics bi-monthly by provisions included in its annual appropriations which have added more required statistics as time went on. ICE published data that was subsequently found to be erroneous and out of date early in the Biden administration. More recently, the update released in February, 2025 included a blank value in one of the “Alternatives to Detention” table and several other numbers which may have been transposed. Will these practices continue?