As the federal government ramps up its efforts to add 10,000 new jobs in U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement, it’s looking for more office space across the country. A lot more.
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The General Services Administration, which handles the federal government’s real estate needs, is looking for roughly 300 new offices to house the new immigration officers and lawyers who will be prosecuting removal cases, The Washington Post reported.
The GSA has formed special planning teams to aid ICE’s expansion. It is exploring markets in Republican-leaning cities and states, including in the South and the Midwest.
A listing on the public federal contracting website shows the GSA is looking for space in 18 cities, including Milwaukee; Birmingham, Alabama; Boise, Idaho; Des Moines, Iowa; and Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Florida.
Office spaces should be fully furnished and spanning roughly 12K SF to 19K SF, with a 75-25 to 80-20 split on private offices versus cubicles, according to the listing. The agency is looking for contiguous spaces that can fit around 70 workstations, for lease terms of between five and 10 years.
"GSA is moving at the speed of need to find cost-effective workspace solutions and support ICE in achieving its important mission to keep America safe," Marianne Copenhaver, GSA associate administrator for the Office of Strategic Communication, told Bisnow in an emailed statement. "Where possible we’ll leverage existing federal space to meet the requirements."
ICE staffers are reportedly pressuring the GSA to sign leases as fast as possible.
“It’s like, we want this yesterday,” one federal official with direct knowledge of the program told the Post.
The agency may end up taking federal offices left vacant after the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency executed its aggressive, chaotic cost-cutting campaign.
Nearly 150,000 federal employees were laid off or resigned from their jobs as of July 21, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. As the government workforce has shrunk, so has its real estate footprint — but many of DOGE's initial attempts to cut space have been dialed back.
DOGE initially claimed it had terminated 748 leases in March, but revised that number to 563 leases two months later.
As of July 30, the government terminated more than 4.8M SF of net-leased office space across 384 leases, but it has rescinded 484 lease terminations covering roughly 6.2M SF, according to JLL's tracker.
This summer, Congress tripled ICE’s enforcement and deportation budget to $29.9B. The administration has received more than 15,000 applications for ICE roles and has tentative offers out to 18,000, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Monday.
The government also budgeted $45B for the construction of immigrant detention centers. Two publicly traded private prison REITs, CoreCivic and Geo Group, could net up to $1B in contracts.
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