The Justice Department intends to expand and modernize the way it conducts deportation proceedings for criminals so that illegal immigrants are deported immediately after they finish prison sentences, officials announced Thursday.

Currently, illegal immigrants who complete prison sentences can spend months held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities as deportation hearings progress. The expansion of the department’s Institutional Hearing Program is meant to streamline the deportation process so that removal hearings occur while inmates are held in prison rather than after they are transferred to ICE facilities.

The Justice Department expects 14 Bureau of Prison facilities and six contractor-run prisons to participate in the Institutional Hearing Program, which will bring judges to prison facilities or use video teleconferencing to conduct removal proceedings.

“We owe it to the American people to ensure that illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes and are serving time in our federal prisons are expeditiously removed from our country as the law requires,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a statement issued Thursday. “This expansion and modernization of the Institutional Hearing Program gives us the tools to continue making Americans safe again in their communities.”

A Justice Department spokesman could not provide a timeline for the planned expansion of the program. It was also unclear how much the program would cost to expand or how much it could potentially save by expediting the deportation process.

Information provided by the Justice Department about the program indicates that an agreement between the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and ICE on the new intake process will be completed by April 6.

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