Kentucky has become a critical warehouse in President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement operations, with more than 9,000 immigrants detained in county jails since October 2022, according to data released by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting.

More than 60 percent of those detentions occurred after Trump took office in January 2025, transforming rural Kentucky facilities into what federal officials use as de facto holding pens for people arrested across the country. Leyla Navarrete, a pregnant woman who had legally obtained asylum and a work permit in Indiana, was arrested during a routine ICE check-in appointment in Indianapolis in August 2025 and transported to the Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, where she remained detained until November.

The number of ICE detainees in Kentucky jails has more than doubled in recent months, rising from 435 in September 2025 to 1,041 by February 2026, according to data from the League of Women Voters of Kentucky. Nearly half came from other states, while the rest were arrested in Kentucky. About 70 percent eventually faced deportation.

Kentucky's participation in the detention system has created lucrative opportunities for county governments. The federal government pays a dozen Kentucky jails up to $100 a day to hold ICE detainees, with additional reimbursements for transportation and hospital guards. Oldham County invoiced ICE for approximately $3.7 million since Trump regained office, detaining nearly 1,800 people during that period.

The expansion has sparked community protests at county meetings and outside detention facilities. Alex LeBlanc, executive director of Kentucky Citizens for Democracy, accused local officials of treating ICE detention as a profit-making enterprise. "They're thinking of these people's lives and their livelihood and their families and their pain as an opportunity to make money," he said.

During Trump's Biden's final year, only four Kentucky jails held ICE detainees. After Trump's inauguration, eight additional counties entered agreements to participate, creating an expansive network for federal immigration enforcement. Under Trump, fewer than half of detained immigrants had criminal convictions, compared to more than 60 percent under Biden, raising concerns about who is being held.

Immigration attorneys report that Kentucky's role in the detention system complicates legal cases. People are frequently transferred between facilities far from their support networks, making it difficult to gather evidence for their deportation hearings and forcing many to find new lawyers. Recent litigation has challenged detention practices, with a federal appeals court rejecting Trump's mandatory detention policy this month, a decision attorneys say will lead to bond hearings for many immigrants detained by ICE in Kentucky.