The Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning to give out more than $608 million in grants to states and local jurisdictions to build more immigration detention facilities, as the Trump administration seeks to expand U.S. detention capacity and quickly deport millions of people.
“This will relieve overcrowding in the U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s short-term holding facilities, further the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement plans and complement U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operational priorities,” the agency wrote in a notice detailing the new Detention Support Grant Program.
The funding will support the creation of more facilities like Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, a converted swamp airstrip where detainees say they have faced inhumane conditions, abuse, and highly restricted access to legal counsel.
The facility has faced legal challenges from environmental, tribal, and civil rights groups.
Florida has said it will seek federal reimbursement for the facility, which has already cost the state $245 million in contracts to build and operate.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said the federal government will seek to reimburse Florida through FEMA’s $650 million shelter and services program — money outside the agency’s disaster budget relief set aside by Congress under Joe Biden’s administration to cover the cost of housing migrants.
The government has also ramped up spending on federal facilities, awarding a $1.26 billion contract to build a sprawling tent facility at an Army base in Texas that will be the largest immigrant detention center in the country.
The Trump administration’s One Big, Beautiful Bill spending package awards ICE an additional $45 billion for detaining migrants, a virtually unprecedented funding increase.
The detention spending spree comes as the Trump administration has sought to reduce FEMA’s federal footprint.
In April, FEMA announced it was ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program focused on preventing natural disasters, prompting a lawsuit from Democrat-led states.
The Trump administration has also rejected 16 of the 18 applications for FEMA’s “hazard mitigation” funds after flooding across the country this year, according to an analysis from The Hill.
However, this week, the White House announced four states that had recently been hit with disasters would get emergency funding: Indiana, which experienced deadly tornadoes in March; Michigan, which experienced ice storms in March; Kentucky, which experienced flooding and tornadoes in April and May; and West Virginia, which experienced flooding and tornadoes in June.
The administration said earlier in the year it would eliminate FEMA entirely, moving disaster response to the states, but has since backtracked, saying it seeks a rebranding at the agency rather than a total shutdown.
