Federal records describe a proposed statewide system for moving people detained by local law-enforcement agencies to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities across Texas. GardaWorld Federal Services holds a contract valued at up to $382 million for transportation and dispatch services in all 254 counties, according to the San Antonio Express-News and an analysis of the award by Project Saltbox. About $100 million had been obligated at the time of that reporting.
The contract covers dispatch, documentation, fleet readiness, reporting, quality control and a secure information portal. GardaWorld personnel would transport detainees from participating local agencies to ICE offices, processing centers and detention facilities. The arrangement does not itself give the company’s employees authority to make arrests or perform the immigration-enforcement duties delegated to local agencies under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to the Express-News.
A statewide logistics layer
Bexar, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties were designated for priority service during the first 10 months of the initial service period. The plan described in the federal records called for operations to begin in the San Antonio, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas before expanding statewide. The request for information cited by the Express-News specified an expected tempo of two trips per hub per shift, with each trip averaging 100 miles, although that was an operational expectation rather than a guaranteed volume.
The network would support a broader system in which local participation varies by county. Texas has more 287(g) agreements than any other state, with 514 agreements across 422 law-enforcement agencies counted by Project Saltbox. In Tarrant County, commissioners separately approved applying for a state grant to support the sheriff’s collaboration with ICE on Feb. 10, 2026, the Fort Worth Report said. At that point, Keller was the only municipal police department in the county identified in public ICE records as having joined 287(g).
Oversight will matter as capacity expands
ICE says the transportation network would feed into facilities that remain subject to federal detention requirements. The agency says that all facilities housing ICE detainees—including those owned or operated by contractors—must comply with applicable detention standards, according to ICE. That requirement addresses conditions inside detention facilities, but it does not by itself resolve questions about contractor performance, transport safety, complaint handling or public access to records.
A separate Texas example illustrates why those questions can become significant when detention infrastructure is expanded quickly. On June 9, 2026, El Paso Matters, reporting on a Government Accountability Office review, said Camp East Montana in El Paso opened after a rushed process that led to overspending and security lapses. That facility involved different contractors and was a detention center rather than GardaWorld’s transportation network; it is a comparison about oversight risk, not evidence that GardaWorld committed similar violations.
Separate San Antonio facility
GardaWorld also received a separate award to renovate an ICE-owned warehouse on San Antonio’s East Side into a detention facility. Project Saltbox reports the award at $17.1 million, and the project is separate from the transport award, although both would add to the infrastructure supporting ICE operations in Texas.
The central uncertainty is therefore not whether federal records describe a large contract—they do—but how quickly it will be activated, how much of its maximum value will be used, and what oversight will accompany the movement of detainees across local jurisdictions. ICE’s standards provide a baseline for detention facilities, while the contract’s statewide scope and local partnerships will determine how the system functions in practice.
