In late 2026, ICE held over 70,000 people across 225 detention centers nationwide, an 84 percent increase from the previous year, marking the highest level of immigration detention since the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003. Of these people, approximately 70 percent had no criminal convictions. This surge contradicts the administration's public narrative that was primarily targeting the “worst of the worst” individuals. The shift in detention power erodes constitutional safeguards that limit the government’s power to confine. ICE is restructuring its infrastructure to institutionalize mass confinement and has purchased a large warehouse in Surprise, Ariz., and cities from Kansas City to Roxbury, N.J. The cost of increasing detention beds is also due to a growing reliance on money and endurance. As of Feb. 14, detainees have filed over 20,200 federal lawsuits seeking release since Trump took office, and federal judges have ruled 4,421 times since October that ICE was unlawfully detaining people.