Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center will house ICE detainees

Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center is set to become one of two federal facilities in the Northeast United States that will confine ICE detainees amid President Donald Trump’s push for significantly more arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Up to 125 detainees could be held at the Center City jail while they await court hearings or removal to other countries.

The move expands the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention sites in Pennsylvania from three to four, and immediately drew condemnation from immigrant advocates who want local leaders to speak out against the arrangement.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons will reserve space in FDC Philadelphia for male ICE detainees, said Frank Bailey, Northeast regional vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees' (AFGE) Council of Prison Locals 33, in an interview Friday. ICE will also provide at least two officers at FDC Philadelphia, located at Seventh and Arch Streets, and the other institutions holding detainees.

The first detainees have begun to arrive at the facility, according to immigration attorneys in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia’s new role in immigration detentions comes as reports of ICE activity have risen around the Philadelphia region since Trump was inaugurated.

Trump has pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, which has raised significant questions for those charged with carrying out the plan. That includes how the federal government will confine millions of people who await court dates and deportation flights after being arrested. Staffing shortages also remain for federal correctional workers.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, ICE, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reached an agreement that included the selection of Philadelphia and Berlin, N.H., as the two Northeastern sites, according to a memo that was obtained by ABC News. Federal detention centers in Miami, Atlanta, and Leavenworth, Kan., were also chosen.

Pennsylvania is home to three institutions that already hold ICE detainees: the 1,876-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, the Clinton County Correctional Facility, and the Pike County Correctional Facility. It remains unclear why a detainee would be held in FDC Philadelphia instead of one of the other facilities.

Philadelphia is a sanctuary city, the name given to jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with ICE, but Trump has promised to crack down on these spaces. For instance, the city does not accept ICE-issued detainers for migrants as valid unless those documents are accompanied by signed judicial warrants.

The city government in Philadelphia has no authority to dictate the operation of federal lockups. And ICE agents in this and other sanctuary cities retain all power to do their jobs.

Efforts to reach city officials for comment were unsuccessful on Friday.

ICE said in a statement that it would use up to 125 beds at the jail, to be filled as the agency’s operational needs dictate. The Philadelphia office “is dedicated to the ICE mission and will continue to use all available resources to fulfill it,” the agency said.

The federal prisons have temporarily housed ICE detainees — under both Republican and Democratic presidencies — but this time around, the institutions will be holding them on a much more regular and longer-term basis while they await trial or deportation. Given the Trump administration’s focus on the issue, Bailey is anticipating an influx of detainees.

“Typically there could have been months where you wouldn’t have any and then you would get a few or whatever, but now I think it’s going to be a pretty steady flow, so it will be much more constant and more of a regular occurrence than it had in the past,” Bailey said.

If a person is charged with a separate crime in addition to entering the country illegally, they will be held at the federal facility until their hearing, Bailey said, but if they are detained solely because of their immigration status then they will be housed until deportation.

Legally, detention is a civil function, not criminal, and its aim is to ensure compliance with immigration court dates and orders.

Jonah Eaton, the supervising litigation attorney at Nationalities Service Center, an immigrant-aid organization in Philadelphia, said he and other lawyers know of several cases where migrants have already been transferred to the federal jail. One of his clients has been there more than a week, after being sent from the Pike facility in Hawley, Pa., he said.

Prior to the “routine processing” of detainees in or out of any federal correctional institution, the facilities will typically be given 48 hours' notice, according to the memo. Detainees are most likely to be “fully processed” at approved detention centers between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays. FBOP will not accept juvenile detainees under the age of 18.

“They’ll get treated just like any other person that would go to a federal prison,” Bailey said, emphasizing that “they will not get treated poorly.”

It remains unclear to the Council of Prison Locals why Philadelphia was chosen as one of two facilities in the Northeast region, considering several institutions across the U.S. operated by the FBOP — including Federal Correctional Institution Loretto, Pa. — were recently closed or deactivated, potentially prime real estate for housing detainees. The council pitched the idea to FBOP’s central office, but it didn’t take.

“We could have just moved some of these ICE detainees into those facilities, and then the staff could have stayed and not had to move to another location,” Bailey said.

Peter Pedemonti, codirector of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, an immigrant advocacy group, had a similar thought, questioning why Philadelphia was chosen.

“It feels very much in Trump’s playbook of petty vengeance and retribution,” he said. “The decision to put extra detention beds right in the heart of Philadelphia, blocks from where they signed the Declaration of Independence, is vintage Trump.”

FDC Philadelphia is not at full capacity, meaning “they’ll have the space,” for the male detainees, Bailey said. However, female detainees are barred from being housed in the federal detention centers due to space concerns, according to the memo.

ICE has approximately 42,000 people currently detained and electronically monitors nearly five times that number, according to government statistics. About 188,302 individuals and families are allowed to live freely, often with relatives or supporters, while being tracked through technological facial matching, telephone check-ins, and wrist-worn devices.

The surge of arrests under the Trump administration is crowding the federal detention system, exceeding its capacity and causing the agency to release detainees, sometimes dozens a day, according to internal government statistics obtained by CBS News.

It’s a problem that has spanned across presidencies with the Biden administration exploring ways to add 600 beds to detention facilities in New Jersey, The Inquirer reported in November 2024.

Though federal agencies dedicated to public safety, like the FBOP, were largely unscathed by Trump-era government hiring freezes or layoffs, the federal prison system is still grappling with nationwide staffing shortages and an influx of detainees “stretches the staff even more,” Bailey said.

FDC Philadelphia is understaffed by 25 officers, according to staffing data obtained by The Inquirer

“The staff are on board with doing whatever we need to do, we just really need more resources to do it and more staff to do it,” Bailey said. “And the only way we can get more staff is if our pay is competitive, so we need to increase the pay.”

In response to a list of questions from The Inquirer regarding FDC Philadelphia’s staffing, expected number of detainees, and other operations at the detention center, FBOP spokesperson Donald Murphy confirmed federal prisons are assisting ICE in their operations, but provided no specifics.

The move faces opposition from advocacy groups who want the local leaders to take a strong stance against Philadelphia being chosen for this operation.

“As this impact becomes larger, what is our city committed to doing, if anything at all?” Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of Juntos, the Latino advocacy organization in Philadelphia, said on Friday. “There are going to be people unjustly detained in our city. Are we just going to look away?”

Councilmember Rue Landau, who held a hearing to gauge the city’s preparedness for a second Trump administration, including the president’s immigration policies, condemned the housing of migrants in federal institutions.

“Housing detainees in our federal prisons is unconscionable and immoral and leaves me with a lot of questions that I want answered,” Landau said.

Staff writer Chris Palmer contributed to this article.