Texas Emerges as State Holding The Most Migrant Detainees as Abbott's Immigration Crackdown Continues

Texas is among the states holding the most deportees who've been rounded up across the nation during the ongoing crackdown on immigration. The report comes as Texas, thanks to its Gov. Greg Abbott, has become a key player in President Trump's efforts to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Newly released federal data shows that no state is holding more immigrant detainees than Texas. As of Feb. 8, eight detention centers in the state were among the nation's top 20 facilities that each are holding at least 800 people for ICE.

Particularly, the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas has the second-most ICE detainees (1,680 a day). The first one is the Adams County Detention Center, located in Natchez, Miss., which averages 2,154 detainees per day, according to an Axios review.

Immigrants can end up in these processing centers after being arrested by ICE or the U.S. Border Patrol. They can also be held in detention after being arrested on criminal charges and released into ICE custody. These centers can be run by a variety of groups, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, state or local governments, private contractors, the U.S. Marshals Service or facilities ICE has for families.

Overall, ICE was holding 41,169 migrants in detention throughout the country. Nearly 55% of those have no criminal record and many more have committed only minor offenses such as traffic violations, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Also in the immigration system are more than 188,000 individuals and families who were in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program as of Jan. 11.

Interestingly, holding immigrants in detention is by far the largest cost of the deportation process, according to Axios. A backlog of 3.7 million cases in immigration courts, where immigrants are entitled to make their case to stay in the U.S., means detained immigrants can wait months, even years, for a hearing.

The steep price tag of migrant detention stands in contrast to the administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts to slash government spending. Most notably, the group has been looking to shrink government size by enacting sweeping layoffs across federal agencies.

It doesn't come as a surprise that Texas is among the top states holding migrants, particularly because Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a fierce Trump loyalist, has made his intentions clear to cooperate with the administration to crack down on unauthorized immigration.

Abbott has been waging his own multibillion immigration enforcement operation, Operation Lone Star, for years and using Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to enforce state laws against trespassing and unlawful entry. He has been seeking reimbursement from the federal government for $11 billion that the state has spent on the operation.