See the detention system.
Data from a public registry, shown many ways. See county maps, a schematic state grid, region covered by each field office, and which facilities that house most people. Every panel names its source and date. This visualizes the data available to the public without added analysis or opinions. Share our linktree.
Maps
Where detention is, county by county
Real county boundaries, continental U.S. Switch between the number of facilities in each county and the people held there (average daily population, where reported). Hover any county.
Note: Alaska, Hawaii, and territories are omitted from this continental frame; they appear in the state grid below. Counts place each facility in its primary county.
Texas, up close
The same county view, zoomed to Texas — the state with the most facilities. All 254 counties drawn; shaded ones have at least one facility.
Every state, equal size
A tile grid trades geography for legibility — small states aren't lost, and territories fit. Switch the metric.
Who runs it · coverage
Which ICE field office covers where
ICE splits the country into 25 ERO field-office areas of responsibility. Every county is shaded by the office that runs it. Pick one office to isolate its territory and see how many facilities sit inside.
Reading it: 25 offices can't each get a unique color, so hues repeat — hover names the office, and the selector isolates one at a time. Territory outlines come from ICE's county-to-office assignment; a facility's office is its own field, so the two can be cross-checked.
Courts, and their tie to detention
Courts and detention are run by different agencies (DOJ vs. ICE), but they connect on the ground: of these courts sit inside or beside a detention facility — where detained people's cases are heard, often by video. Red marks those; grey are community courts.
The link: the registry ties facilities to a co-located court by shared ZIP — its own derivation, labeled as such. Beyond co-location, every court also falls inside one field-office territory (panel 04). A per-case facility→court routing isn't in public data, so we don't assert it.
The human scale
Detained people, next to the towns around them
Each dot is a county with a facility: how many people live there (across) against how many are detained there (up). Diagonal lines mark detention as a share of residents. In a few small counties, the detained population rivals everyone who lives there.
Reading it: residents are 2023 Census county population; detained is average daily population summed over a county's facilities. County is the reliable unit (facilities carry a county); a town-level version is possible where a facility sits in a named place.
How far detention sits from a city — or a court
For each facility that reports a population, how far its county is from the nearest city of 250,000+ or the nearest immigration court — a first measure of how hard a place is to reach: to drive to, to visit, to get a lawyer or support to.
of facilities sit 60 miles or more from the nearest city of 250,000.
Approximate & county-level: distance is measured from each facility's county center, not its exact address, so remote facilities in large counties are understated. Territories are excluded (their nearest “big city” would read as the mainland). Distance to the nearest immigration court, and a combined reachability index, are separate measures we can add.
A few facilities hold almost everyone
People worry about places like Adelanto, Dilley, El Paso, Stewart — the big dedicated centers. The data bears the instinct out. Drag the line: the top facilities by population account for the share shown. The long tail is county jails, hold rooms, and hospitals that report no standing population at all.
How the split is drawn: “reports a population” means the facility appears in ICE's FYTD statistics with an average daily population. That operational file covers ~ of the roster entries — a natural, source-based line between the working detention system and the long tail. This tiering is our derivation, labeled as such.
Rankings & relationships
Contract & authority type
How each facility is held. IGSA = local-jail agreements; USMS = Marshals; BOP = federal prisons.
Largest facilities by population
Average daily population; the thin mark is stated capacity where reported.
Population against capacity
Each dot is a facility reporting both. The dashed line is 100% of stated capacity — dots above it sit over capacity.
The registry's own signal
How the sources agree
The registry's defining feature: for each facility name, do the sources stand alone, converge, or conflict? Our derived signal, not an outside fact.
Last inspection rating
Where an inspection outcome is on file.