US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is exploring plans to launch a privately-run, statewide transportation system in Texas. The agency envisions a nonstop operation, funneling immigrants detained in 254 counties into ICE facilities and staging locations across the state.
Early planning documents reviewed by WIRED describe a statewide transport grid designed for steady detainee transfers across Texas, with ICE estimating each trip to average 100 miles. Every county would have its own small, around-the-clock team of contractors collecting immigrants from local authorities deputized by ICE. It is a subtle transfer of the physical custody process into the hands of a private security firm—authorized to carry firearms and perform transport duties “in any and all local, county, state, and ICE locations.”
The proposal emerges amid the Trump administration’s renewed campaign to expand interior immigration enforcement. Over the past year, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has poured billions into detention contracts, reactivated cross-deputation agreements with local police, and directed ICE to scale up removals inside the US. The plan fits neatly into that strategy; a logistical framework for a system built to move detainees faster and farther, with fewer federal agents ever seen in public.
The proposed system surfaced this week after ICE issued a market probe titled “Transportation Support for Texas.” The listing includes draft operational requirements outlining staffing levels, vehicle readiness rates, and response times, along with detailed questions for vendors about cost structures, regional coverage, and command-and-control capabilities.
According to the document, ICE envisions 254 transport hubs statewide—one for each Texas county—each staffed continuously by two armed contractor personnel. Vehicles must be able to respond within 30 minutes, maintaining an 80-percent readiness rate across three daily shifts. ICE’s staffing model adds a 50-percent cushion for leave and turnover, raising staffing needs by half over the baseline necessary to keep the system running uninterrupted.
WIRED calculates this would require more than 2,000 full-time personnel, in addition to a fleet of hundreds of SUVs roving the state at all hours.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What the plan describes, in essence, is a shadow logistics network built on agreements with local police departments under the 287(g) program. These once symbolic gestures of cooperation are today a pipeline for real-time biometric checks and arrest notifications. Transportation is merely the next logical step. For ICE, it will create a closed loop: Local authorities apprehend immigrants. Private contractors deliver them to either a local jail (paid to house detainees) or a detention site run by a private corporation. The plan even specifies that contractors must maintain their own dispatch and command-and-control systems to manage movements statewide.
ICE is all but extricating itself from the process—becoming little more than an overseer that sets routes, response times, and reporting standards—while effectively turning immigration enforcement into a service industry; a continuous, privatized, and largely unseen system capable of moving detainees hundreds of miles overnight while operating without direct federal presence.
In June, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 8, requiring any sheriff who runs a jail to seek a 287(g) agreement with ICE. The law aims to create “uniformity and cooperation among all counties,” according to the bill’s sponsors. Governor Greg Abbot signed the bill on June 20. It is scheduled to take effect at the start of the new year.
Sheriffs will be required to choose one of three federally-defined 287(g) models: jail enforcement, task force, or warrant service. The jail enforcement model lets local officers screen and process immigrants for ICE inside jails. The warrant service model authorizes them to serve and execute ICE administrative warrants on detainees in custody. The task force model allows deputized officers to identify and arrest undocumented immigrants during their regular police duties.
The program has rapidly expanded under the Trump administration. In September, DHS celebrated a 641 percent increase in 287(g) partnerships, claiming “more than 1,000 local and state law enforcement agencies in 40 states” are now working with ICE.
There are financial incentives for agencies willing to sign up. Local departments that sign 287(g) agreements can have each deputized officer’s salary, benefits, and overtime costs fully covered by the federal government. They are also eligible for quarterly performance bonuses of up to $1,000 per officer based on arrests and their responsiveness to ICE requests.
In a separate move, the Texas Attorney General’s office signed the first statewide 287(g) agreement with ICE at the start of the year, delegating selected state investigators to perform immigration-officer functions: interrogating individuals about their status, making arrests without warrants, and preparing charging documents.
In practical terms, Texas is poised to no longer simply cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but function as an annex of them: a state-run extension of federal enforcement built into its everyday policing, transforming state sovereignty into an instrument of national policy.
