LINCOLN — Nebraska’s version of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center appears to be headed for the southwestern part of the state, Red Willow County.

President Donald Trump’s administration is set to build or create a major center to hold migrants in McCook, the county seat of Red Willow, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The detention center is to be located at or adjacent to the McCook Work Ethic Camp, a medium-security facility operated by the state prison system. While the state facility is intended to house up to 200 people, the Post documents indicate federal plans that the Nebraska center in McCook will have capacity for 300 detainees. 

People briefed by Gov.  Jim Pillen’s team said he plans an announcement Tuesday afternoon about at least the McCook part of a larger effort to assist the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically increase detention capacity for migrants.

Laura Strimple, a Pillen spokeswoman, declined to comment Tuesday about the state facility or plans. ICE and Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond immediately to a request for comment. FBI Director Kash Patel was in Nebraska on Tuesday, having met with state and local law enforcement, including Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers.

Nebraska owns nearly 45 acres at the McCook site. It is unclear whether the ICE facility would be built new or as an expansion to the existing facility.

In its detention expansion strategy, the Trump administration has revived other dormant prisons, repurposed military bases and secured partnerships with private prison contractors, local sheriffs and Republican governors to house its record number of detainees, the Post reported.

Nebraska has historically struggled to hire enough staff to use the McCook Work Ethic facility as it was originally intended, to reform younger men who’ve committed crimes by assigning them jobs and tasks. The camp focuses its counseling and other efforts on encouraging behavior changes to reduce recidivism.

It is the least crowded of Nebraska’s adult prison facilities, running a daily census of about 184 in Fiscal Year 2025. But it is also one of the prison facilities with the greatest need for additional staffing. The department’s census says it was staffed to house an average of about 125 people in FY 2025.

Cristine Schwartz, the public information officer at the McCook Work Ethic Camp, referred calls to a state Correctional Services spokeswoman, who did not immediately return calls. 

The state has been working around the Douglas County Jail deciding to no longer actively participate in ICE detentions. Detainees from eastern Nebraska have been sent to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and as far away as the Lincoln County Jail in North Platte — where the 76 workers arrested in the high-profile immigration raid at Omaha’s Glenn Valley Foods plant were transported. Many are still there.

ICE also plans to contract with jails in eastern Nebraska’s Sarpy and Cass Counties for 30 beds each and the Washington County Jail for 15, according to the Post’s ICE documents. It is apparently Nebraska’s contribution to a plan that the federal documents showed would open or expand 125 immigration detention facilities this year.

By January, it said, ICE would have capacity to hold more than 107,000 people, up from close to 50,000 currently. That road map, last updated July 30, reflected ICE intentions to rely increasingly on makeshift “soft-sided” structures that could be built in a few weeks and taken down as easily. 

The government is also planning to make more room for detaining parents and children.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an interview with CBS News that Nebraska was being considered as a home to one of the state-run, federally funded migrant detention centers that the Trump administration hoped to launch across the country in the likeness of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” state-run facility in the Everglades.

She said she had already appealed to governors and state leaders. Strimple at the time responded to the Examiner’s request for comment by saying it was premature to comment on potential detention operations. She added, “Gov. Pillen will make details public at the appropriate time.”