A top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official says the agency needs more detention space to keep up with increasing arrests — but its plans to open a new facility in San Antonio have been pushed back.

As the Trump administration ramps up deportations — now including people who were living in the country under protected status — ICE has been procuring nontraditional facilities to turn into detention centers.

In February, the agency confirmed that it had purchased land in San Antonio, and public records indicated the agency intended to retrofit a 640,000 square-foot warehouse on the East Side by Nov. 30.

Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella said in a letter to city leaders last week that the move was part of a broader plan to help speed up deportations, but it’s now looking at a later target date.

“[ICE] has acquired a site in San Antonio, Texas, which is intended to serve as a processing facility with an estimated average daily population of 1,000 to 1,500 individuals,” he wrote in a June 22 letter to Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.

“ICE anticipates bringing this facility online in the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2027, however, the procurement process is ongoing, and no contract has been awarded at this time.”

Local leaders — most of whom oppose President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies on an ideological basis — have been exploring any potential legal avenues to stop or slow new facilities that could no longer be needed after his term ends in 2028.

They don’t have much power over a federal facility, but the council approved new zoning policies in an attempt to keep out private ones.

Since the proposed ICE facility involves remodeling an older building, the civil rights group LULAC has also been trying to slow that conversion by challenging the environmental permits.

Venturella said ICE needs that space soon to keep pace with deportations.

“The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reimagining its detention structure
and acquisition strategy to address rising operational tempo and increasing arrests,” Venturella wrote. “These efforts aim to meet the growing demand for bedspace and streamline the detention and removal process.”

Since then, the Supreme Court has also given the Trump administration power to expel more than 350,000 migrants from Haiti and Syria, and to turn away asylum-seeking migrants at the border.

Venturella said the agency plans to renovate the nontraditional facilities “to safely, securely, and humanely house detainees,” and it will “collaborate with the vendor, city authorities, and utility service providers to review design plans and proposed engineering solutions.”

On Thursday, Jones responded, seeking to assert the city’s limited authority in that process, including required collaboration on federal environmental permits, and potentially on city permitting.

She also said the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance process should allow for community input before a vendor is selected — something that could be quite dramatic in a blue city where residents have already been organizing to voice their opposition.

This story originally appeared in the San Antonio Report.