ICE’s Secret Nationwide Expansion: New Offices Near Schools, Churches and Daycares, Built With Bypassed Rules

Declassified federal records obtained exclusively by WIRED reveal that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have spent recent months running a covert campaign to dramatically grow ICE’s physical footprint across the United States. Internal documents confirm more than 150 new lease agreements and office expansions will add ICE facilities in nearly every U.S. state, with most of these new sites located in or just outside the country’s largest major metro areas. In dozens of instances, these new facilities— which will house frontline ICE agents and agency attorneys—are sited near elementary schools, medical clinics, houses of worship and other sensitive community spaces.

To illustrate the scope of the expansion, in El Paso, Texas, ICE is relocating to a large multi-building campus directly off Interstate 10, close to multiple local healthcare providers and private businesses. In Irvine, California, the agency is moving into new office space that sits adjacent to a local childcare center. On New York’s Long Island, ICE is opening a new office near a government passport processing center. And in an affluent suburb outside Houston, Texas, ICE is set to move into a commercial office building just a few blocks from a local preschool.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)—the federal agency that manages government-owned buildings and also handles internal IT services for the executive branch—has played a central role in this rapid expansion. Internal emails and memos reviewed by WIRED show DHS explicitly instructed GSA to set aside standard federal lease procurement rules and even keep new lease listings off public records, citing “national security concerns” to speed up ICE’s nationwide immigration enforcement work.

In a statement to WIRED, Marianne Copenhaver, GSA’s associate administrator for communications, said:

“GSA is committed to working with all of our partner agencies, including our patriotic law enforcement partners such as ICE, to meet their workspace needs. GSA remains focused on supporting this administration’s goal of optimizing the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission. GSA is following all lease procurement procedures in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

DHS, ICE’s parent agency, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from WIRED.

Since Donald Trump took office in 2025, ICE’s workforce has more than doubled. DHS reports the agency now has 22,000 officers and agents deployed across the country, and is still actively hiring thousands more additional staff. The agency received nearly $80 billion in funding as part of Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, giving it nearly unlimited resources to advance the administration’s long-stated goal of combating what it has repeatedly framed as an “invasion” of unauthorized immigrants. This rapid wave of new hiring has created an urgent need for additional office space and opened the door to deploying ICE agents to entirely new regions of the country.

As first reported by NPR and The Washington Post in September, dozens of GSA staff were reassigned to a new “ICE surge” team tasked with scouting new office locations and expanding existing facilities for the agency’s growing workforce. Documents reviewed by WIRED further show that staff from the Public Buildings Service (PBS)—the GSA division that manages federal property and lease agreements—were specifically ordered to actively support ICE’s physical expansion and find new workspace for two core ICE divisions: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). ERO is the branch responsible for on-the-ground immigration enforcement, including arrests, detention and deportations, and previously operated out of just 25 field offices across the U.S. OPLA serves as ICE’s legal arm, handling all deportation proceedings on behalf of DHS, including cases against individuals charged with crimes, alleged terrorists and human rights violators, per ICE’s official website.

Records reviewed by WIRED confirm the ICE surge team has already secured new workspace for the agency across nearly every region of the country. In addition to expanding existing ICE-owned or leased offices, the team has already relocated or is in the process of moving ICE into new commercial buildings, or underutilized space already controlled by the federal government via existing leases, in almost every U.S. state and major city.

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Starting in September, GSA leadership was ordered to bypass the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA), a federal law that requires open, competitive bidding for all federal building and lease contracts. ICE requested that all new leases fall under the “unusual or compelling urgency” exception to federal procurement rules, a statute that allows agencies to skip open bidding if “the Government would be seriously injured unless the agency is permitted to limit the number of sources from which it solicits bids or proposals.”

A September training kickoff for PBS staff assigned to the ICE surge team cited the One Big Beautiful Bill Act funding and the plan to hire 13,000 new ICE employees as the official “trigger event” for creating the new team. Team members were told the agency needed roughly 250 new locations to accommodate new staff, a goal that would be met via both new private leases and repurposing existing unused federal space. Internal documentation reviewed by WIRED notes that the team’s “primary focus is securing a space. Renovations are secondary.” Staff were instructed to move as fast as possible, and not get “hung up” on minor cosmetic issues like “needing paint and carpet before occupancy.”

In a September 10, 2025 memorandum, an OPLA representative asked GSA’s Office of General Counsel to set aside standard leasing procedures using the “unusual and compelling urgency justification,” aligned with Trump’s executive order on immigration. The memo reads:

“In the next three months, OPLA will grow to more than 3,500 attorneys and 1,000 support staff. OPLA has critical space needs that require the ability to identify office locations nationwide that OPLA can readily occupy as soon as possible.”

GSA’s ICE surge team began touring potential sites and working to finalize lease agreements in a matter of days, far faster than the standard federal procurement timeline. In a September 24, 2025 email to GSA leadership, a DHS official acknowledged the request to hide lease information was outside “normal” procedures, but asked the agency not to publicize any details about new locations. The email stated:

“Due to national security concerns and recent attacks against ICE, publicizing new lease locations puts our officers, employees, and detainees in grave danger.”

While many ICE facilities have been the site of public protests, there are no documented fatal attacks on ICE office locations in recent years.

Earlier in 2025, GSA had been ordered to pause nearly all new acquisitions, deliveries and contract modifications, with exceptions only for projects under $50,000 and work supporting White House security. But just one day after the DHS secrecy request, on September 25, 2025, a GSA commissioner emailed agency leadership that “an exception to the acquisition pause has been approved for all actions supporting the ICE hiring surge, regardless of dollar value.”

By September 29, GSA had already finalized dozens of new lease awards. ERO leadership provided the surge team with a list of specific requirements for new locations, including the addition of sally ports—secure interlocking entryway systems typically used by prisons, police stations and military facilities—and other enhanced security upgrades. ICE also issued one key geographic requirement: all new locations must be within a 10-mile radius of an existing ERO facility.

By early October, the ICE surge team continued working through the federal government shutdown, even as most other non-critical federal work was put on hold. Days after the shutdown began, GSA was still approving and finalizing new ICE leases. An internal signed memorandum dated October 6, 2025, ordered GSA staff to “approve of all new lease housing determinations associated with ICE hiring surge,” citing ICE’s “urgent” space needs and claims that delays would harm the agency’s ability to “meet critical immigration enforcement deadlines.”

On October 9, the same day Trump announced during a cabinet meeting that the administration would make permanent cuts to programs funded by Democrats during the shutdown, GSA received a formal list of office requests from OPLA, including expansions of existing offices and new leases in 41 U.S. cities.

In an October 29, 2025 memorandum, a representative from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—ICE’s second major division, which handles a broad range of investigative work from human trafficking to art theft—asked GSA’s Office of General Counsel to conduct nationwide lease acquisition for HSI “using the unusual and compelling urgency justification,” in line with Trump’s executive immigration order. The memo warned:

“If HSI cannot effectively obtain office space in a timely manner, HSI will be adversely impacted in accomplishing its mission—a mission that is inextricably tied to the Administration’s priority in protecting the American People Against Invasion.”

By early November 2025, documents reviewed by WIRED show 19 new lease projects had already been finalized in cities across the U.S., including Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Sacramento, California; and Tampa, Florida. Dozens more were days away from approval in Miami, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and New Orleans, Louisiana, among other cities. Emergency short-term space requests were also submitted in eight major cities, including Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; and Newark, New Jersey.

ICE has repeatedly documented its plan to expand into new cities across the U.S. in internal records. The September memo justifying the urgent expansion notes OPLA will grow its legal operations into Birmingham, Alabama; multiple cities in Florida including Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Tampa; Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Long Island, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; Spokane, Washington and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The memo adds that existing ICE offices are already at maximum capacity and will need additional square footage to accommodate the wave of new hires, and that OPLA had already finalized the selection of nearly 1,000 new attorneys for hire at the time the memo was written.

Months after the “surge” initiative launched, ICE’s nationwide expansion is already well underway, according to documents reviewed by WIRED. While a full public list of all new sites is not available, WIRED has confirmed details of dozens of planned expansions and new leases, which are current as of January 2026. More than 100 additional planned locations across states including California, New York and New Jersey are not included in this reporting, as WIRED has not obtained full address details for those sites.

WIRED reached out to property owners, agents and managers for all private sites confirmed to be targeted for ICE leases; most did not respond to requests for comment or declined to speak on the record. One spokesperson for a property in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, told WIRED: “We have signed a lease with the Department of Homeland Security. However, it is inaccurate to say this is an ICE office - the space will not house ICE agents or support their operations. It is strictly for back-office officials, such as lawyers and analysts.”

A spokesperson for One City Center in Portland, Maine, drew a distinction between ERO and HSI, two separate ICE divisions: “HSI focuses on narcotics, money laundering, child exploitation, human trafficking, cybercrime—and its OCC office leads the nation’s effort against child sex trafficking. OCC has not been approached by ICE Enforcement and Removal, nor do we have any plans to lease space to them.” HSI remains a core unit of ICE regardless of its specific mission focus.

As of January 2026, ICE’s expansion is heavily concentrated in a handful of high-priority states. Texas has at least nine active leasing projects underway. In Harlingen, a city near the U.S.-Mexico border, a new lease has been awarded at 222 East Van Buren, in the same building as a local U.S. Department of Labor outpost. ICE has already detained dozens of immigrants in the Harlingen area. In The Woodlands, a planned community outside Houston, ICE is set to move into an office building at 1780 Hughes Landing Boulevard, just a few blocks from a Primrose preschool. In El Paso, ICE is relocating to the Epicenter Office Community, a large multi-building campus directly off Interstate 10 near dozens of local healthcare providers and businesses. In San Antonio, ICE is considering a move into a building at 15727 Anthem Parkway, near residential apartment buildings, dozens of restaurants and Methodist Hospital Landmark. In Eagle Pass, ICE is eyeing a building at 3381 U.S. Highway 277, which already houses another federal law enforcement office: a local DEA outpost.

A senior Trump administration official recently told WIRED that California and New York are “next” for the kind of large-scale enforcement operation that recently deployed 3,000 ICE agents to Minneapolis, focused on voter fraud investigations. At least seven new leasing projects are currently underway in California. In Sacramento, ICE has already installed new security upgrades at the John E. Moss Federal Building ahead of a major expansion; the building already hosts a Department of Justice immigration court. In Irvine, an Orange County city roughly an hour’s drive from Los Angeles, ICE is moving into new offices at 2020 Main Street, located right next to a local airport and a childcare center. In the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, ICE is expanding its existing offices at the James C. Corman Federal Building, which also hosts local IRS and Department of Health and Human Services offices. Additional expansions are ongoing across the state, including in existing federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles, San Diego’s Edward J. Schwartz Courthouse and Federal Building, and Santa Ana’s federal building. The Santa Ana site is located just a few blocks from a local church, a top-ranked high school football stadium, and multiple public government service offices.

ICE is also rapidly expanding its physical footprint across New York and New Jersey. In Roseland, New Jersey, less than an hour’s drive from midtown Manhattan, ICE is moving into a building at 5 Becker Farm Road, which is located near the Roseland Child Development Center. In Woodbury, a hamlet on Long Island, New York, ICE is opening new offices at 88 Froehlich Farm Boulevard, near an expedited passport processing center. In New Windsor, a Hudson River town within driving distance of New York City best known for the Storm King Art Center, ICE is moving into offices at 843 Union Avenue. All three of these new ICE sites are located within 90 minutes of a private warehouse in Chester, New York, that DHS is currently converting into a new immigrant detention center.

This pattern of locating new ICE facilities near sensitive community spaces plays out across dozens of other cities nationwide. The expansion not only repurposes existing ICE space or shares buildings with other federal agencies, but also places frontline ICE agents and staff in commercial buildings adjacent to everyday civilian community sites.

Many new sites are located near houses of worship: In Hyattsville, Maryland, ICE is expanding its offices at the Metro 1 building on 6505 Belcrest Road, just a few blocks from a local Lutheran church. In Tennessee, OPLA plans to move into the Nashville House office building, a commercial center near multiple churches. The One City Center building in Portland, Maine, where ICE is expanding HSI offices, is within walking distance of at least six churches, one mosque, one synagogue, and a Salvation Army adult rehabilitation center.

Dozens of planned new ICE offices are also located near K-12 schools and early childhood care centers. In Berwyn, a Philadelphia suburb, ICE is set to move into a building at 1000 Westlakes Drive; Hillside Elementary School is located roughly one mile away. In Hartford, Connecticut, OPLA is expanding existing ICE office space in the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building, which sits just two blocks from Betances Elementary School. In Memphis, Tennessee, ICE is ready to move into offices at 5904 Ridgeway Center Parkway, in a building near the private all-girls Hutchison School. In Westerville, a Columbus, Ohio suburb, OPLA is poised to move into a small office building at 774 Park Meadow, near Oakstone Academy High School. In Meridian, Idaho, ICE is moving into the Portico at Meridian Center, located near Spalding STEM Academy High School. And in Oakbrook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, ICE is moving into the Oakbrook Gateway office building, which sits near both a Bright Horizons childcare center and a local hospice facility.

Many other planned sites are located near hospitals and private medical offices. In York, Pennsylvania, ICE’s OPLA division has leased space at Yorktowne Medical, a multi-tenant facility that houses dozens of private medical clinics. In Columbia, South Carolina, ICE is set to move into offices at 1441 Main Street, just a few blocks from Prisma Health Baptist Hospital. In Naples, Florida, ICE is poised to open new offices at 75 Vineyards Boulevard, close to the Physicians Regional Pine Ridge campus hospital.

Many new sites are also strategically located near existing or planned ICE detention facilities. The Hyattsville, Maryland expansion site is roughly 90 minutes from a warehouse DHS recently purchased that ICE has confirmed will be used to detain immigrants, as is a second OPLA site planned for Cockeysville, Maryland. One of the multiple ICE projects underway in Florida is a new lease at Research Commons, an office building in Orlando at 12249 Science Drive that is less than 25 minutes from a warehouse The Washington Post has previously identified as a planned large-scale detention center. The York, Pennsylvania ICE site is also an hour and 20 minutes from a warehouse ICE recently purchased for nearly $90 million, which a Republican congressman has confirmed will be used as an immigration processing and detention facility.

In Alexandria, Louisiana, ICE is moving into a building at 1201 3rd Street, located right in the city’s historic downtown core, just a 16-minute drive from the Alexandria Staging Facility, a long-running site where immigrants are detained, transferred and deported. Alexandria has become a key hub for ICE operations nationwide, and a 2025 investigation by The Guardian documented repeated allegations of abuse and due process violations at the facility.

This reporting only covers a fraction of the hundreds of new ICE leases being processed across all GSA regions, which span every U.S. state and territory. New ICE offices will share buildings with local doctors, restaurants, and