The Department of Homeland Security has awarded five construction contracts that could be worth up to $7.3B combined to three firms, according to watchdog group Project Salt Box. The deals give the department, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the option to deploy funding across five government-owned sites in New York, Texas, Arizona, Florida and California over the next five years. The move matters because it represents a strategic pivot for ICE, which had previously focused on buying and converting existing warehouses into detention facilities after receiving $45B in last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act as part of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts.
The largest contract, $2.2B for a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, went to Alabama-based Rapid Deployment Inc. The same firm also won a $1.5B contract for a facility in Batavia, New York. A U.S. affiliate of Montreal-based GardaWorld was tapped for projects in Miami and Florence, Arizona, reportedly worth $1.2B each. Rudiarius Holdings Corp., a Wyoming-based company with ties to Boston's Rise Construction Management, reached a $1.2B deal to build a facility in El Centro, California. Rapid Deployment did not respond to Bisnow's requests for comment, Rudiarius could not be reached, and GardaWorld directed inquiries to DHS, which did not immediately respond.
The evidence comes from a single Bisnow National report published on September 22, 2026, which cites Project Salt Box as the source of the contract figures. The report notes that ICE spent more than $1B on 11 vacant properties between December 2025 and April 2026, paying an 11% to 13% premium compared to market prices. The agency reassessed that strategy when DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin took over from Kristi Noem in March. ICE reportedly sought to sell seven of the warehouses it had purchased and pivoted toward private prison operators. DHS spent $2.2B acquiring four private prison facilities in California, Minnesota and Kansas from CoreCivic last month, and agreed to pay CoreCivic and Geo Group $240M per year to reactivate defunct facilities.
For the commercial real estate and detention services sectors, the contracts signal a durable federal demand pipeline for ground-up construction on government-owned land, rather than acquisition of existing industrial properties. The shift could reduce pressure on warehouse pricing that had been inflated by ICE's earlier buying spree, while concentrating new construction opportunities among a small group of contractors. The involvement of GardaWorld, a major security services provider, and Rudiarius Holdings' ties to Rise Construction Management suggest that firms with existing federal contracting or construction management experience are positioned to capture this spending. The five-year optional deployment structure also means the $7.3B ceiling is not guaranteed outlay, but a framework for future task orders.
The analysis is limited by the single-source nature of the reporting and the absence of direct confirmation from DHS or the contractors. Project Salt Box's figures are not independently corroborated in the dossier, and the exact terms, timelines, and facility capacities remain unknown. Bisnow's report does not specify whether the contracts are firm fixed-price or cost-reimbursable, nor does it detail the scope of work beyond construction. What to watch includes whether DHS exercises the full contract values, whether the warehouse sale proceeds offset the new construction costs, and whether the pivot to private prison operators expands beyond CoreCivic and Geo Group. Further reporting from federal procurement databases or DHS announcements would be needed to confirm the contract mechanics and competitive award process.