The Trump government is getting ready to start detaining immigrant families again.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to invite private jail companies to submit proposals for contracts to reopen family detention centers.

The Trump administration is planning to start detaining migrant families again, including those with young children. This could lead to more arrests of kids and teens, according to three people who know about the plans.

Sources say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will soon release a “Request for Proposal” asking private jail companies to offer bids for contracts to reopen detention centers designed for families.

The Obama and first Trump administrations kept parents and their children in detention together, but the Biden government stopped this practice in early 2021. According to a 1997 court agreement, ICE cannot keep families with children in normal detention centers and must release them within 21 days.

The Biden administration permitted undocumented immigrant families to stay in the United States while the head of the family was part of a geolocating monitoring program, like wearing an ankle monitor, even if they were facing deportation.

This might change soon when family detention sites reopen. Two facilities that can accommodate migrant families are located in Karnes, Texas, and Dilley, Texas. The Karnes facility, which was managed by GEO Group, can hold more than 3,000 people. The Dilley facility, previously run by Core Civic, can hold up to 830 people, as stated on their websites. Dilley is closed but being taken care of, while Karnes is currently housing adult ICE inmates and would need to switch back to a family facility.

It’s unclear whether ICE plans to create new facilities or just reopen old family detention camps. ICE is already dealing with a budget gap, and this will add more expenses. Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not reply to calls for comments.

Two former DHS officials under the Biden administration said there are tens of thousands of migrants in the U.S. who are part of families in the and who have final orders of removal, meaning that once caught they could be fast tracked to detention and then deportation after arrest. This could help ICE increase its removal numbers, which the agency feels pressured to do because Trump promised “mass deportations” during his campaign.

A former official warned that many families in the United States have different immigration statuses, meaning some members are in the country officially while others could be deported. Families in that situation could be split if some members are deported. In an October interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Trump’s border chief, Tom Homan, said that no adjustments would be made for families with mixed immigration status. However, he mentioned that people who are in the country legally could choose to leave voluntarily to stay with their family.

Since President Donald Trump started his term again last month, most of the ICE charges that have been reported are of single adult men.