Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to create “mobile detention facilities” for immigrant detainees in Pennsylvania, according to publicly available government documents. It’s part of a massive detention expansion that began last year when the agency turned into the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with a $75 billion supplement from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

This shift in strategy comes after ICE started buying large warehouses nationwide to turn into mega detention centers.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons described wanting squads of trucks rounding up immigrants and having the deportation process run like “[Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”

The plans faced widespread pushback from communities near the warehouses and from immigration activists.

“I don’t understand. What do we need this for?” Linda Powell, a resident of Williamsport, Md., told NPR in March.

ICE had recently purchased a warehouse near her home, and she was worried about the impact on the town’s infrastructure. She also had humanitarian concerns about conditions in the facility: “We don’t need it here.”

This was the sentiment in various towns that staged protests. Several states, including Maryland, sued. ICE has since backed off the plans and, according to data gathered by watchdog group Project Salt Box, is selling most of those warehouses, indicating that the project has largely failed.

But the Trump administration is also detaining immigrants at record numbers — roughly 100,000 people arrested in the last two months.

While the warehouse project has flopped, records show that in the last few months ICE has quietly expanded its detention system in other ways.

In an August earnings call for the private prison company GEO Group — one of ICE’s main contractors — an investor asked CEO George Zoley whether ICE was still aiming to reach 100,000 operational beds.

“I think so, for the most part,” Zoley responded, saying ICE presently has 68,000 beds. “So they have another 30,000 or so more beds to go.”