As feds eye a potential Orlando ICE facility, records show detainees might stay for 7 days

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 15, 2026

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ORLANDO, Fla. — ICE’s new “processing centers,” like the one it is eyeing in a massive warehouse in east Orlando, would each hold up to 1,500 immigrant detainees for as long as a week before they are transferred to other facilities or deported, according to an outline of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s plan released by New Hampshire’s governor.

Homeland Security intends to spend more than $38 billion on eight large-scale detention centers, 16 “processing centers” and 10 existing privately run detention centers, according to the plan released by Gov. Kelly Ayotte on Thursday. Doing so would expand its bed space to 92,600 people.

The agency expects to have all of them open by the end of November as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation initiative.

While an Orlando facility isn’t explicitly named in the documents, a facility at 8660 Transport Drive in Orlando was toured last month by a senior ICE official and was listed in a spreadsheet obtained by the Orlando Sentinel that showed 23 locations around the country considered as potential ICE processing and detention centers.

The spreadsheet said the Transport Drive facility, with an estimated purchase price of about $99 million, would hold about 1,500 detainees.

The document released this week describes facilities that could hold 1,000 to 1,500 detainees as “processing centers” that will serve as “staging locations for transfers or removals.”

So far, the Orlando building, a 429,000-square foot warehouse in the industrial east of Sunbridge Parkway, hasn’t been purchased by the federal government. The real estate broker, the building owner and ICE have refused to comment on if, and when, such a deal will move forward, but the “for lease” listing for the building has been removed from online real estate sites.

Though the warehouse, is huge, ICE plans other much larger facilities can house between 7,000 and 10,000 people for about 60 days, the document says.

The document was first reported by The Boston Globe.

“These facilities will ensure the safe and humane civil detention of aliens in ICE custody, while helping ICE effectuate mass deportations,” it reads.

The warehouses would provide food, clothing, bedding, recreation, medical care, legal access, law libraries and religious space, the document reads.

The collection of new ICE facilities will support the agency’s mission and “will be built to handle the immediate surge capacity and sustained long-term operations, providing a unified, scalable solution,” it adds.

The document’s overview states that ICE reviewed fire protection, water supplies and wastewater and power systems at all of the sites. None need upgrades, it said, and, if they do in the future, that “will provide no adverse effect on the community and the surrounding properties for each facility identified.”

Advocates and activists have decried the idea of an ICE detention facility in Orlando, and in a letter last week to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, two Central Florida congressmen, Maxwell Frost and Darren Soto, urged the Trump administration to abandon the idea.

“In addition to opposing additional ICE enforcement efforts targeting non-criminals and family members, we are gravely concerned about opening an additional ICE detention facility at this location,” the two Democrats wrote.

The building is not meant “for human residence,” they said. “We are especially concerned regarding the risks to human life and safety should such a structure be hit with natural disasters. Given the deplorable conditions at other ICE facilities, we find it increasingly difficult to believe that this facility would do more than propagate suffering for the people of Central Florida.”

Orange County Commissioners said this week they intend to consider a resolution formalizing their opposition to such a facility. Neither Orlando nor Orange governments have been contacted about the facility the federal government wants to build in their borders.

The most recent documents were released by Ayotte, a Republican, after ICE’s Acting Director told a congressional committee Thursday he had given them to her. The records include a general overview of the nationwide plan, as well as an economic impact analysis of a planned warehouse in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

A spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis wouldn’t say if Florida’s top executive had received similar documents.

The Merrimack facility is about 100,000 square feet smaller than the Orlando one. In an economic analysis of the New Hampshire site, DHS estimates it will cost $158 million to renovate it, and $146 million to operate it over three years. It states it will require 1,252 jobs to renovate, and 265 more to operate it.