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As national news outlets report that Utah may be in line for a 10,000-bed migrant detention facility and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it is “exploring all options” to expand capacity, Utah officials have been silent about what, if anything, they know about the matter. CNN reported last week — citing unnamed government sources — that the administration has aims to build facilities in Utah, Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kansas. The contracting process is ongoing and details about what that might entail remain unclear. On Monday, a spokesperson for ICE said the administration’s enforcement efforts have “resulted in a significant number of arrests of criminal aliens that require greater detention capacity.” “While we cannot confirm individual pre-decisional conversations,” the agency said in a statement, “we can confirm that ICE is exploring all options to meet its current and future detention requirements.” Utah’s elected officials don’t seem to know much — or, at least, aren’t saying much — about the potential for a large, new ICE detention center or any discussions that may be happening. “Utah has not been notified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or the Department of the Navy about the detention facility in the news recently,” a spokesperson for Gov. Spencer Cox’s office said in a statement Monday. “We will continue working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce the law and protect public safety.” Nearly all of Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation did not respond to inquiries about the reported project. A spokesperson for first-term Rep. Mike Kennedy indicated his office had not been informed of an immigration detention facility. Likewise, spokespeople for leaders of Utah’s GOP-dominant Legislature were silent as of Monday evening. A call for transparency “The people of the state of Utah would want and desire transparency and a voice in this process and this decision,” said Steve Erickson, founder of the Citizens Education Project. “Without that, it’s just being forced upon us.” Erickson said he filed an open records request last month with Cox’s office seeking any documents related to a potential detention center. On Oct. 16, he said, an attorney for the governor replied that the office had no responsive records. Some fear such a facility will help President Donald Trump’s administration speed up detentions and deportations of undocumented people living in Utah, including those without criminal records. “It’s disheartening and really worrisome for immigrants in our state, given the documented abuse and neglect that is already happening in ICE detention facilities,” Ciriac Alvarez Valle, a senior policy analyst focused on immigration with advocacy group Voices for Utah Children, said. “We know that more ICE beds means more people are going to be detained.” Detentions and deportations unsettle families and kids, Alvarez Valle said, by whisking away households’ earners. This year has been the deadliest for ICE detainees since 2004 with 25 deaths in custody, according to a recent report from the American Immigration Council. Alvarez Valle also worries that building a new detention facility and increasing ICE’s presence in Utah would further scare off immigrants from seeking help or going to the police when they need it. According to CNN, the planned facilities are a joint effort from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Neither the Defense Department nor Homeland Security responded to questions Monday from The Salt Lake Tribune. Who got contracts with ICE? Contract solicitations for the project, the outlet reported, were made through the U.S. Navy’s Supply Systems Command under a mechanism known as the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract. That program was previously used primarily to support military operations abroad, but earlier this year was amended to include in the title, “Territorial Integrity of the United States.” Documents for the contract opportunity now note that vendors “may be required to provide infrastructure, staffing, services, and/or supplies necessary to provide safe and secure confinement for aliens in the administrative custody” of DHS and ICE. There were seemingly no Utah companies among the dozens that were awarded contracts since the change, The Tribune found in an analysis of award notifications. Contractors include a range of corporations, such as tent furnishers and remote workforce camp operators. The reported immigration detention facilities are the latest example of the White House militarizing immigration enforcement. The New York Times reported earlier this year that Hill Air Force Base, Utah’s largest military installation, was among military bases Trump was considering to temporarily hold immigrants in the country illegally. At the time, a spokesperson for the base said it had not been officially contacted about the plan. The spokesperson did not answer questions Monday about whether it is still a candidate to hold immigrant detainees. The Utah National Guard asked its members in August to volunteer to help ICE in a logistical capacity at the behest of the Defense Department. It did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the number of troops who signed up for the operation, currently slated to end in mid-November. Brian Garrett, a deputy director over Utah’s Department of Veterans and Military Affairs, said in an email Monday that neither the department nor the guard have been contacted about an immigration detention facility. “I’ve reached out to a few contacts in the Pentagon and DHS to see if I can find any additional info,” Garrett added, “but due to the [federal government] shutdown haven’t received any additional info back from them.” An earlier offer from Cox In May 2024, before Trump returned to the White House, Cox said he would welcome an ICE detention facility in Utah so migrants do not have to be transported to Las Vegas to be processed for deportation. “We would love to have a holding facility here, and we have made several offers to make that easier so there isn’t this backlog when it comes to transportation,” Cox said at the time. “We can offer up these facilities, and they’ve turned down our offers unfortunately. I think they like the problem, exacerbating the problem, and that’s deeply frustrating.” Asked in July — amid news of the "Alligator Alcatraz” facility in Florida — if a similar holding facility would be coming to Utah, Cox said there were no discussions of that possibility. “We haven’t had any requests to do so,” he said then, “and we don’t have any plans to do that right now.” Sheriff’s offices in Beaver, Cache, Kane, Sanpete, Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, Washington and Weber counties have signed what are known as 287(g) agreements to help cooperate with ICE enforcement operations, as has the Riverton Police Department and the Utah Department of Corrections. The Utah Department of Corrections said Monday it is unaware of any plans for a detention center in the state and that it would not be involved in bringing one to Utah.
