These are the facilities holding migrant detainees in Central Texas
AUSTIN (KXAN) — In the months since President Donald Trump resumed office, federal immigration enforcement has ramped up across the country, with evidence of it popping up in and around Austin.
The J.J. Pickle Federal Building in downtown Austin. (KXAN Photo/Matt Grant)
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention facilities temporarily hold immigrants awaiting court proceedings to determine their immigration status. This includes asylum seekers and refugees fleeing prosecution in their home countries, and those suspected of unauthorized arrival, illegal entry and visa violations.
In January, a high-level source confirmed the J.J. Pickle Federal Building in downtown Austin was being used to house migrants. At that time, roughly a dozen immigrants had been brought to the center.
More recently, the Trump administration said it was considering selling the building in an effort to cull underutilized federal spaces.
ICE has confirmed that a facility in Pflugerville is being used to process migrant detainees. (KXAN Photo)
Meanwhile, earlier this year, protesters gathered outside a building in Pflugerville with razor wire and Homeland Security vehicles outside.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed this month the building is being used as an administrative office and processing center. The agency issued the following statement:
The facility in Pflugerville, Texas, is leased by the U.S. General Services Administration and will be a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resident office scheduled to open in late May. The employees working at this Enforcement and Removal Operations resident office will oversee programs, such as the Criminal Alien Program, fugitive operations, and will manage the non-detained docket. Aliens who are arrested may be brought to this office to be processed which can take up to 12 hours and will then be transferred or released as appropriate.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Neither the J.J. Pickle Federal Building or the Pflugerville facility appear on the ICE webpage that lists its detention and processing facilities. ICE has not yet responded to our questions about their absence from the page.
The troubled history of the T. Don Hutto Detention Center
Before housing migrant detainees, the T. Don Hutto Detention Center was intended to be a medium-security prison. (KXAN Photo/Mercedez Hernandez)
The longstanding detention center for migrants awaiting due process in the Austin area has been the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor.
Originally designed as a medium-security prison, the center holds around 500 detainees and opened in 2006. Private prison company CoreCivic has been contracted to run the facility since its inception.
A lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union in 2007 accused the center of providing poor living conditions for families, including young children detained there.
Legal, public and political pressure eventually lead the center to take exclusively women detainees in 2009.
Over the next decade, there were at least three accusations of improper sexual activity between guards and detainees at T. Don Hutto.
ICE reported firing a guard for alleged improper conduct with a detainee to Williamson County officials, while another guard admitted to groping women in custody and was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison. The FBI investigated a third claim of sexual abuse by a guard, but no one was charged.
Pressure from human rights group Grassroots Leadership over that last case led Williamson County to end its contract agreement with ICE and CoreCivic. The term of that contract ended in 2019.
Activists said they thought the end of that agreement meant the end of the facility, but the detention center continued through a new partnership between ICE and CoreCivic. The terms of that agreement not set to expire until 2030.
New demographic of detainees for T. Don Hutto
In April, ICE released the number of detainees at each of its facilities over the last fiscal year. That data showed no women listed at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center.
Migrant detainment varies by county in Texas. Scroll over the map to see where migrants are being housed. Source: ICE (KXAN Interactive/Christopher Adams & Dalton Huey)
Combing through the last few years' data shows the facility stopped taking women in 2022 and started exclusively detaining men.
CoreCivic deferred questions about that change and how emergencies and assaults are reported to its government partner.
"ICE is committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments under appropriate conditions of confinement," an ICE spokesperson said in a statement.
KXAN Digital Data Reporter Christopher Adams, News Director Haley Cihock, Graphic Artist Wendy Gonzalez, Director of Investigations & Innovation Josh Hinkle, Investigative Producer Dalton Huey, Digital Special Projects Developer Robert Sims and Digital Director Kate Winkle contributed to this report.