Recent roundups of illegal immigrants in major cities across the country had led to the question: Where are the detainees going to be housed — temporarily or otherwise?
The process of arresting them is one thing, but the Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn’t going to put ankle monitors on violent gang members and career criminals and let them back out on the streets.
The process involves transferring detained criminals to various facilities, with the main focus on states like Texas and Louisiana, which together house about half of the roughly 50,000 ICE detainees as of mid-2025.
Some detainees are going to unconventional locations, such as a Space Force base in Colorado and the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where facilities are being converted for immigration detention.
Alaska is one of those places.
Some 40 detainees are now being housed in the Anchorage Correctional Complex until they can be processed and, if appropriate, deported. The State of Alaska has made a deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take the 40-or-so men, as part of a contract the state already had.
The plane with the detainees was a Coast Guard flight that landed in Anchorage on Sunday, sources said.
Nationwide, ICE facilities are straining at about a 109% capacity.
A major protest has been called by the Party for Socialism and Liberation for the Anchorage Correctional Complex, per this announcement:
