Under the new contract, ICE pays the sheriff’s office $215 per detainee per day, up sharply from the $93.82 per day under the expired agreement. The contract is for 250 beds, although the facility continues to house many more federal immigrants than that, with a staffing level of 368 as of Wednesday, according to the sheriff’s office. Under the new contract, that number of inmates means the facility could have generated more than $79,000 in revenue that day, up from $34,526 under the previous agreement.

For years, progressive immigrant rights activists – and the two US senators from Massachusetts — have criticized Plymouth County’s deal with federal immigration authoritiesciting federal reports that the ICE unit was overcrowded, unsanitary and that staff were abusive. Amid several short-term contract extensions in recent years, they pushed Plymouth to end the deal in September, when it was set to expire.

The new contract means the hundreds of beds will continue to be available to house inmates throughout the administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January. Trump has promised mass deportations, although the scope and details of his plans remain unclear.

To carry out any major deportation effort, Trump would likely need significant bed capacity across the country to house people awaiting their court proceedings or while arrangements are made to remove them from the country. This is one of the main reasons why advocates continue to push to close ICE detention centers and why they are discouraged by the new contract.

“If there are beds, the Trump administration will do everything it can to fill them,” said Boston University Law School professor Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes, associate director of the university’s Immigrant Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic. “If you build it, they will come.”

Thomas M. Hodgson, a former Bristol sheriff and co-chairman of the Trump campaign in Massachusetts this year, acknowledged that eliminating beds could bog down deportation efforts. But he said the new president would “do what he has to do” to enforce the law forcefully.

“If they think they’re going to cripple ICE, that’s not going to happen,” he said, saying Trump could try to bolster the immigration enforcement agency’s ranks with members of the army. He said immigration laws should not be selectively enforced, adding: “If they don’t like the laws that exist on illegal immigration, then go to Washington and change the laws.” »

ICE typically detains people awaiting deportation proceedings under contracts with local agencies that operate detention centers, such as sheriff’s offices. During Trump’s first presidency, Suffolk Sheriff Steve W. Tompkins terminated his agreement with ICE. Two years later, in 2021, the Biden administration terminated an ICE contract with what was then Hodgson’s office due to living conditions in that unit.

Since then, advocates have targeted the deal between ICE and the Plymouth plant. The complaints led the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to launch an investigation in 2021 that ultimately resulted in 70 recommendations for improvements. The office recommended improving telephone access, language access, the complaint process and medical care.

Defenders also turned to the attorney general’s office, which said it was “looking into” the allegations. And U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, both progressive Democrats, sent a letter to federal authorities this summer calling for tighter oversight and a review of the contract with the Plymouth Sheriff’s Office.

Earlier this year, the Globe detailed the story of a man who said he was pepper-sprayed there then held for weeks in solitary confinement; the sheriff’s office said at the time that its officers fully complied with use-of-force policies.

The sheriff’s office declined to comment, citing contract provisions that require it to defer to ICE. The Boston office of the immigration enforcement agency did not respond to a request for comment.

In light of the history of complaints, Heather Yountz, senior immigration attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, said she was disappointed that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, continues to maintain the agreement.

“Plymouth was rewarded for its bad behavior,” Yountz said. “These concerns do not appear to matter to DHS.”

Sean Cotter can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him @cotterreporter.