Across the country, Democratic lawmakers are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a systematic campaign of secrecy by the Trump administration around the rapid expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities — including centers proposed to hold children and families — demanding transparency, investigations, and in some cases legislative action to force the federal government's hand.
The push has become one of the defining battles on Capitol Hill in 2026, as the administration's immigration detention operation has ballooned to a scale not seen in modern American history.
A Detention System Exploding in Size
A year ago, approximately 37,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities across the nation. By the end of January 2026, that number had jumped to more than 72,000. The administration's goal is to keep expanding detention space in step with a surge in arrests. Ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security aims to build bed space for 100,000 immigrants alleged to be in the country illegally — a scale of mass detention not seen since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Federal immigration officials have been scouting warehouses across the country as part of a massive $45 billion expansion of ICE detention facilities. In many cases, these purchases have been marked by secrecy. And with that secrecy has come a firestorm of opposition — and growing Democratic demands for answers.
Schumer and Ryan: "An Abject Disaster"
One of the sharpest confrontations over ICE's lack of transparency erupted in Orange County, New York, where federal authorities had been eyeing a former Pep Boys warehouse in Chester as the site of a proposed mass immigration detention center.
After weeks of chaos, secrecy, and changing stories surrounding ICE's plans, Congressman Pat Ryan and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer jointly demanded answers and called for a formal investigation into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's management in Orange County. The two lawmakers called for the Office of the Inspector General to probe what they described as gross mismanagement amid overwhelming community opposition.
"ICE has consistently sent out contradictory information, dismissed the concerns of local residents and elected officials, and repeatedly ignored our Requests for Information," Ryan said. "Not a single elected official — Democrat or Republican — supports this plan, nor were they briefed on it at any point."
Senator Schumer was equally forceful. "DHS's management in the Hudson Valley has been an abject disaster, shrouded in chaos, secrecy, and confusion. Federal leaders' inquiries are ignored. Local leaders are denied answers. Nobody can get a straight answer," he said, adding that DHS "clearly can't be trusted."
Ossoff's Investigation: Children and Families at Risk
Meanwhile, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia has emerged as one of the most persistent Democratic voices demanding accountability over conditions for children in ICE custody. Ossoff has released multiple investigative reports uncovering credible reports of abuse of pregnant women and children in immigration detention, shocking findings of medical neglect and denial of adequate food or water, and an overall pattern of over 1,000 credible reports of human rights abuses in the first year of the Trump administration.
At the center of his oversight push is a direct confrontation over access. In the course of his ongoing investigation into human rights abuses in federal immigration detention, ICE arbitrarily required seven-day notice for Congressional staff to inspect a facility, postponing an urgent inspection of conditions for children held in a "family" detention center. Congressional offices have also been informed that ICE will no longer accommodate "mixed groups," preventing members and their staff from being accompanied by doctors, attorneys, or other experts during facility tours.
Ossoff has also taken direct aim at new detention facilities proposed in his home state. Describing the situation in Social Circle, Georgia — where ICE has its eye on a million-square-foot warehouse less than a mile from an elementary school that could hold up to 10,000 people — Ossoff said: "We're not getting any transparency. The local officials in Social Circle can't get any answers from the Department of Homeland Security. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy — and that's very much this Department of Homeland Security's M.O. They evade congressional oversight. They lie in public."
Ossoff has since backed legislation that would force ICE to obtain local approval before opening new detention centers, arguing that "despite clear local opposition, this administration's plans and intentions have been shrouded in secrecy without any local input."
A Pattern of Blocked Oversight
The battle over transparency is not limited to proposed facilities. Democrats have clashed repeatedly with DHS over their right to conduct unannounced inspections of existing facilities — a right they say is guaranteed by federal statute.
Ranking Member Rep. Robert Garcia led Committee Democrats in demanding DHS Secretary Kristi Noem immediately end a new ICE policy that bars elected Members of Congress from freely inspecting detention facilities by requiring them to give DHS seven days' notice before visiting. Members of Congress have the legal authority to carry out oversight duties at any time.
After congressional Democrats sued ICE to challenge the policy, a court ultimately sided with them. The ruling restored Congress's statutory right to conduct unannounced inspections, with the court making clear that no administration is above the law and that "the human consequences of detention cannot be hidden from public view."
Arizona, the ACLU, and the Broader National Picture
The transparency fight extends far beyond New York and Georgia. In Arizona, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva and fellow Democratic lawmakers demanded transparency over a potential 500-bed ICE detention facility in Marana, where a former state prison building was quietly sold to a for-profit private contractor. Hundreds of community members attended public forums demanding answers, and the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 4-to-1 to oppose the proposed facility. Local officials said they had not been meaningfully consulted in advance.
The ACLU, meanwhile, has been fighting the secrecy battle in the courts. Obtained through FOIA litigation, heavily redacted documents revealed ICE's expansion plans, prompting the ACLU to declare: "The Trump administration cannot be allowed to continue its weaponization of immigration detention in secret. The public has a right to know where and how the government intends to expand its use of these deadly facilities."
Congress has already allocated more than $45 billion for ICE detention alone. If all proposed facilities are opened, they would dramatically increase ICE's capacity. In just the first three weeks of 2026, six people died in ICE custody.
Legislation and What Comes Next
Democrats are not content to fight the battle one facility at a time. Congressman Maxwell Frost introduced the Stop Unlawful Detention and End Mistreatment (SUDEM) Act, legislation designed to expose widespread human rights violations in the immigration detention system and shine a light on what he called ICE's "secretive practices." "Donald Trump and Republicans have turned our immigration system into a taxpayer-funded kidnapping operation," Frost said. "People are being disappeared into a system that operates in the shadows — without public accountability, without basic human dignity, and often without legal justification."
With the administration showing no signs of slowing its detention expansion and communities across the country left in the dark about what is being built in their backyards, Democrats say the fight for transparency is far from over — and they are making clear that children and families caught in the system will be at the center of their case.