ICE looking for more San Antonio office space as immigration crackdown continues

Heavily armed ICE agents arrest a man during an enforcement action in California last year. Credit: WIkimedia Commons / DHS

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to further expand its San Antonio operations as the agency carries out the Trump administration’s mass-deportation plans, documents show.

The federal agency at the center of the White House’s aggressive immigration crackdown is seeking 66,000 square feet of office space in San Antonio, according to public filings unearthed by Project Salt Box, a site that reports on immigration detention contracts.

ICE is on the prowl for 53,000 square feet of office facilities and parking inside Loop 1604 along with a separate 13,000-square-foot office facility, which likely would be located at the same property, according to solicitations from the General Services Administration. The GSA is the federal government’s real-estate arm.

The inquiries come after ICE spent $66 million in February to buy an East Side warehouse it plans to convert into a detention facility that could hold as many as 1,500 prisoners. City and county officials have voiced opposition to that plan, although records show the agency plans to move forward on opening it later this year.

The government posted ICE’s lease requests for San Antonio office space on April 1 and asked landlords to submit proposals by the end of that month. As of May 15, the requests were marked “inactive,” although documents don’t indicate whether ICE has signed any contracts.

ICE already operates Alamo City field offices at 1777 N.E. Loop 410 and 1015 Jackson Keller Road, according to its website.

The agency’s San Antonio operation ranked fourth in the number of daily arrests this year through March 10, a recent New York Times investigation found. Only Miami, Dallas and Atlanta recorded higher numbers.

If ICE agents here continue at the same pace, they’re expected to round up 23,440 people by the end of 2026, a 69% increase from last year, the Times reports.

What’s more, the federal government announced last November that ICE’s San Antonio office would work in concert with the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations to create a regional entity known as the Homeland Security Task Force-South Texas.

The Trump administration has swept up real estate across the country as it works to ramp up the biggest mass-deportation program in U.S. history. However, the White House has faced lawsuits and investigation over its efforts, which critics argue exceed the limits of presidential power and have involved inhumane and violent tactics.

Even so, the administration is armed with nearly $170 billion in enforcement money over the next four years from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Republican-controlled Congress passed last summer.

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