Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning to boost migrant detention capacity to 92,600 beds as part of a nationwide deportation push, according to an internal agency memo.
The across Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, according to The Associated Press.
Proposed warehouse purchases in six other cities fell through after sellers declined to move forward under pressure from activists, according to the report. Additional deals, including in New York, are reportedly nearing completion.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said this week there are about 1.6 million illegal aliens in the U.S. with final deportation orders, roughly half of whom have criminal convictions.
During testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, Lyons said, "What we're tracking right now is about 1.6 million final [deportation] orders in the United States, with approximately 800,000 of those having criminal convictions."
Lyons clarified that those deportation orders were issued "through an immigration judge with the Department of Justice separate from Immigration Customs Enforcement," not by ICE or the Department of Homeland Security.
He added that there are "16,840 final orders at large in the state of Minnesota," a state that has become a flash point for resistance to immigration enforcement.
Border czar Tom Homan announced a temporary drawdown of enforcement resources this week, citing the need to recalibrate operations as ICE scales arrests and detention capacity nationwide.
Fox News Digital's Peter Pinedo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.