U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to expand its detention capacity to more than 107,000 beds by January, internal agency documents show. The move, backed by President Donald Trump and a $45 billion appropriation passed earlier this year, would more than double the space available at the start of 2025. To reach the target, ICE intends to open or enlarge 125 facilities across the country, repurposing shuttered prisons, military bases and tent camps. Officials say the nation’s largest immigrant detention complex will begin operating in Texas within days, while planning documents outline three additional centres in rural Colorado. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed construction of a new “Deportation Depot,” built in eight days to supplement the recently opened “Alligator Alcatraz” camp in the Everglades. The expansion comes as ICE already holds a record 59,000 migrants. Industry executives say companies that once supplied event or military tents have been retooling for detention work for more than a year, anticipating the surge in federal contracts. Advocacy groups and detainees allege deteriorating conditions inside the new facilities. Affidavits backing a class-action lawsuit claim that people held at Alligator Alcatraz have gone two weeks without seeing daylight and that a respiratory illness is spreading through overcrowded, poorly ventilated tents. The Department of Homeland Security denies any widespread outbreak and says on-site medical care operates around the clock. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Mary Williams has temporarily halted additional construction at the Everglades camp pending an environmental review. Civil-rights attorneys warn the rapid build-out risks repeating abuses documented at older ICE sites, while administration officials argue that the extra beds are essential to speed deportations. The first of the new facilities is scheduled to open before the end of the year, setting up fresh clashes in Congress over funding and detention standards.