A leaked DHS document reveals plans to build large-scale ICE detention centers, with embedded metadata accidentally exposing officials involved in the planning. The "Detention Reengineering Initiative" aims to create a network of regional processing centers and "mega" facilities holding thousands, with a target activation date of November 2026. The plan has sparked public controversy in several communities, and the leaked document contained unscrubbed comments discussing detainee length of stay. The main topics covered are the exposure of officials' identities in a leaked document, the details of ICE's planned detention center expansion, and the public backlash against these plans.
A PDF that Department of Homeland Security officials provided to New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte’s office about a new effort to build “mega” detention and processing centers across the United States contains embedded comments and metadata identifying the people who worked on it.
The seemingly accidental exposure of the identities of DHS personnel who crafted Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mega detention center plan lands amid widespread public pushback against the expansion of ICE detention centers and the department’s brutal immigration enforcement tactics.
Metadata in the document, which concerns ICE’s “Detention Reengineering Initiative” (DRI), lists as its author Jonathan Florentino, the director of ICE’s Newark, New Jersey, Field Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations.
In a note embedded on top of an FAQ question, “What is the average length of stay for the aliens?” Tim Kaiser, the deputy chief of staff for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, asked David Venturella, a former GEO Group executive whom The Washington Post described as an adviser overseeing an ICE division that manages detention center contracts, to “Please confirm” that the average stay for the new mega detention centers would be 60 days.
Venturella replied in a note that remained visible on the published document, “Ideally, I'd like to see a 30-day average for the Mega Center but 60 is fine.”
Details of the Kaiser and Venturella's involvement in the document were first flagged by Project Salt Box. DHS did not respond to a request for comment about what the three men’s role in the DRI project is, nor did it answer questions about whether Florentino had access to a PDF processor subscription that might have enabled him to scrub metadata and comments from the PDF before sending it to the New Hampshire governor. (The so-called Department of Government Efficiency spent last year slashing the number of software licenses across the federal government.)
The document itself says that ICE intends to update a new detention model by the end of September of this year. ICE says it will create “an efficient detention network by reducing the total number of contracted detention facilities in use while increasing total bed capacity, enhancing custody management, and streamlining removal operations.”
“ICE’s surge hiring effort has resulted in the addition of 12,000 new law enforcement officers,” the DHS document says. “For ICE to sustain the anticipated increase in enforcement operations and arrests in 2026, an increase in detention capacity will be a necessary downstream requirement.”
ICE plans on having two types of facilities: regional processing centers that will hold between 1,000 to 1,500 detainees for an average stay of three to seven days, and the mega detention facilities, which will hold an average of 7,000 to 10,000 people for an average of 60 days. It’s been referred to as a “hub and spoke model,” where the smaller facilities will feed into the mega ones.
“ICE plans to activate all facilities by November 30, 2026, ensuring the timely expansion of detention capacity,” the document says.
Beyond detention centers, ICE plans to buy or lease offices and other facilities in more than 150 locations, in nearly every state in the US, according to documents first reported by WIRED.
The errant comment in the PDF sent to New Hampshire’s governor is not the only issue the set of documents apparently had; according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, a previous version of an accompanying document, an economic impact analysis of a processing site in Merrimack, New Hampshire, referenced “the Oklahoma economy” in the opening lines. The errant document remains on the governor’s website, as of publication.
Across the country, ICE’s mega detention center projects have sparked controversy. ICE’s purchase of a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, spurred hundreds to attend a city council meeting on the topic, according to KJZZ in Phoenix. In Social Circle, Georgia, city officials have pushed back against DHS’s proposal to build a mega center there, because officials say the city’s water and sewage treatment infrastructure would not be able to handle the influx of people.
Updated 3:37 pm ET, February 20, 2026: Added a link to Project Salt Box, which first reported on metadata showing Kaiser and Venturella worked on the DHS document.
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